


Favors

by madame_faust



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-26 22:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: Aimless college drop-out Raoul winds up working the night shift at his family's demolition recovery depot when he realizes the scrap yard isn't as deserted as he previously thought.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Even though this says 'Modern' AU, I actually imagine it taking place in the '80s - not for any particular reason except that an absence of smart phones makes it more difficult for characters to contact each other. I like the idea of Raoul fighting desperately not to be the guy who peaked in high school dealing with a beyond dorky and horrifically unstealthy Erik.

Scrap. Metal.

There was money in it, Dad insisted, with the same kind of over-zealous fervor late-night infomercial hosts used to describe the latest innovations in roasting pans (non-stick! no clean-up! IT’S LIKE THE BIRD NEVER EXISTED!), or plastic bathtub overlays (mildew? toxic mold on your shower walls? COVER THEM UP SURELY NOTHING BAD WILL COME OF THAT!), or...yeah. Insomnia didn’t run in his family, it galloped. 

Which was why Raoul, as a chronic sufferer, was chosen to be the night watchman for Chagny and Sons (more properly Chagny and _Son_ because aside from using his CPA to balance the books, Phil wanted nothing to do with the place). 

“There’s no substitute for human eyes and ears,” Dad informed Raoul after his son meekly inquired whether or not putting up a couple of cameras might be enough to deter thieves. Meekly because, as a college-drop out and Coast Guard reject, he was definitely on Dad’s shit list. He didn’t offer a counter-argument just nodded his head and yes-sirred and took himself to the Army-Navy Surplus to cobble together a reasonable-looking security guard uniform. 

All for show, of course. Just like the walkie-talkie in his hand - there was no other side to receive transmissions and so, for the past week, Raoul’s nights had consisted of regular perimeter checks with a heavy flashlight leftover from Dad’s army days. It was the only real weapon he could boast - no gun, no license to carry. If anyone _actually_ tried to break in, he’d be royally screwed. 

Maybe Dad was counting on that. Maybe this was his revenge for being a total failure as a human being.

At twenty-one, this was _not_ how Raoul expected his life to turn out. As a legacy, he’d assumed his acceptance to Howard was assured (it was) and that this would pave the way for future success. At eighteen, good-looking, and the star of his high school lacrosse team (in addition to being the much-coddled youngest son of a “good family”), maybe it was right that he should feel that way. What no one in the family bothered to tell him was that legacy might give him the bricks, ready-made, but it was up to _him_ to do the paving. 

Just to continue the building metaphor (ironic, surrounded by the detritus of abandoned and fallen structures) for another minute, mom _had_ been the mortar that held the family together. When they lost her, it seemed, they lost everything. 

Or, at least, he had. Frankie and Gracie had their husbands and kids. Phil had work and a revolving door of girlfriends. Raoul was single, away at school (where he was spending more time pledging fraternities than writing papers or showing up for class), and adrift. They hadn’t even told him about the heart attack when it first occurred; they hadn’t wanted him to be distracted. A much bigger distraction was when they called him, tearful and frantic and told him they were putting him on the next flight home. The hospital was keeping her on the respirator just long enough for him to come and say good-bye. He arrived just as the grim-faced priest was leaving. Frankie was holding one hand, Dad the other. Gracie was sitting at one side of the foot of the bed, Phil on the other. There was nothing for Raoul do, no place for him to stand but at the end of the bed, staring at her. It was like watching a soap opera; even now, over a year later, he still had trouble believing she was gone. That he wouldn’t hear her bustling around in the kitchen on Sunday morning, mixing up waffle batter and whistling along with the radio.

Crazy how much could change in a year. Dad sold off a successful car dealership and it looked like he was going to be able to settle down and coast the rest of his life on the cash from the sale. He and mom even booked a cruise.

Then she was gone and Dad went a little nuts. Raoul was taken up with drinking, being put on academic probation and finally taking himself out of school before he could be kicked out. It was while he was discovering that a penchant for panic attacks in small spaces was derailing a potential career in the Coast Guard that Dad made some disastrous investments that took a huge bite of out his retirement money. Hence scrap metal. 

It wasn’t an arduous job by any stretch of the imagination - very little heavy lifting, very little actual human contact. Most nights he just parked himself in the swivel chair in the main office and fiddled with a busted old radio that could occasionally pick up the odd ball game or gospel station when he got lucky. It was downright boring, most nights. Sometimes the fence would rattle and Raoul would jog over to have a look, but there was no sign of a disturbance when he got over there. He figured it was a racoon. 

The job would have put a cramp in his social life, if he had one. With his friends scattered around the country, starting jobs, finishing degrees, and him back living with his dad, there weren’t many demands on his calendar. He’d gotten a letter from his old high school with information about their five-year class reunion that he’d promptly thrown in the trash. There wasn’t anyone from school he wouldn’t be embarrassed to see - or wouldn’t be embarrassed to see _him_ and know just how far the school’s Golden Boy had fallen. 

Actually, he reflected as he gently twisted the dial on the radio, just enough to pick up the faint, static-y sound of an R&B station that was apparently being broadcast from Mars, there was _one_ member of the old crowd he'd like to see. Christine Daye. He and Christy had been good friends, living on the same street when they were little. It was natural, really, them being the same age and from two of the only black families on the block. 

They’d drifted in high school, for...a lot of reasons. None of them seemed compelling now: he’d gotten some shit from people over it being “gay” for him to have a girl best friend. Then her mom passed away and a lot of people kept their distance, like tragedy was contagious. Their friends group diversified, she hung out with the chorus and band kids, he started spending most of his time with the jocks and in-crowd. The last time he saw her was spring break freshman year - they made plans to go to the movies, but he broke them at the last minute, suffering from the worst hangover of his life after he hooked up with some of the guys from high school and drank too much tequila on an empty stomach. He only told her he’d been sick and Christy was very understanding about it, but hadn’t called him to hang out afterward. Raoul couldn’t say he blamed her.

After Mom passed, he thought about calling her or writing her, but it felt like a grade A asshole move. ‘Hey remember when I got weird and distant after your mom got sick? Well, now that we’re both half-orphans, I was wondering if you’d be interested in giving me some sympathy.’

Yeah. He could imagine that going over really well.

The closest he’d come to making full-on contact was chatting with her dad after his post-night shift run. Gus Daye had been teaching music at the elementary school for fifteen years and he was usually on his way to his car when Raoul was on the cool down. Sometimes he suspected that her old man felt sorry for him and waited for him. They never talked long, just made small talk about the state of some of the neighbors’ lawns, the rowdiness of the most recent class of Kindergarteners, and how Christine was doing.

Great, apparently. She’d be finishing up her degree in the spring and moving back up north to look for work. Like her dad she’d gone in for education with a specialization in special ed. She was still keeping up with her music. 

Gus had given Raoul her number, said he was sure she’d love to hear from him, but though Raoul pocketed it, he hadn’t dialed. The ink was faded now, but he carried the little piece of paper around with him all the time, glanced at it, glanced at the phone, then folded it back up with a regretful sigh. He’d blown it with Christy, just like he’d blown it with everything else. 

Still, he hadn’t thrown the paper away. Some nights he actually picked the phone up off the receiver and _almost_ brought himself to dial it. Nights like this when the radio gave up the ghost, and buzzed into silence and the only noise in the place was the sound of Raoul putting his head on the desk with a quiet thud.

_Rattle. Rattle._

Rocky Racoon again. Raoul picked his head up with a sigh, tucked Christy’s phone number back into his pocket and hefted the flashlight into his hand. 

Raoul picked his way around the piles of old iron gates, the rows of dingy bathtubs and pedestal sinks to the source, always near the old plumbing and copper pipes. The rattling continued, longer than usual - by the time he rounded the pilings of tin ceiling tiles it usually stopped, Rocky long gone. His steps slowed as he approached the fence, got deliberately louder; he really hoped little Rocky wasn’t rabid and bumping into things because his tiny raccoon brain was on the fritz. 

_Riiiiiiiiiiiip._ Then, a muttered oath. “ _Shit!_ ”

Raoul froze. Racoons didn’t wear clothes. Or swear. 

“Who’s there?” he called out, lowering his voice an octave and squaring his shoulders, like he was trying to scare off a bear or something. “I’m...I’m…”

Despite the fact that he’d been camped out in the scrap yard every night for the past three months, he hadn’t actually imagined what he’d do if he caught a trespasser. The words faded into nothing since voice the truth was not actually helpful in this situation.

_I’m not a real security guard!_

_I’m not even using a real walkie talkie!_

_I’m not actually armed!_

Luckily, the latter didn’t seem to apply. The light from his flashlight caught on long, white raised hands that didn’t appear to be holding a weapon. So that was one danger off the table. Two, actually, considering the fact that Raoul originally thought he was seconds away from having his ankles ravaged by a rabid raccoon. The fact that the intruder was _not_ a raccoon, but was, in fact, a guy, did make things complicated though.

Raoul took a minute to size him up. His first thought, _I could take him_ , was confirmed by the fact that, though this dude was tall - like, basketball player tall - he was also twig-skinny. He was also stuck to the fence, caught on a curled edge of metal that was pretty thoroughly twisted in his jeans. 

“I didn’t take anything,” the guy spoke up. Raoul flashed his light over his face - white dude, judging by the hands, but his face was partially obscured by a hospital mask and a hoodie. 

“Um...okay,” Raoul said, voice back up in its usual register. He scratched the back of his head with the flashlight and the guy stuck on the fence lowered his hands slightly. “Um...were you going to, though?”

“Uh…” the pause was too awkwardly long for Raoul to assume that a ‘no’ was coming at the end of that, but he waited anyway, hoping he could just write the guy off as a thrill-seeker and tell him to get on with his night, go away, and never come back. “I was going to leave money! You guys are open really bizarre hours.”

That was true, Raoul conceded, if only to himself. 10am-2pm on Mondays, 8am-12pm on Tuesdays, 1pm-4pm on Wednesdays and so on. Closed weekends. Dad wanted to expand their hours, but for that to happen he’d have to hire an actual staff. And they just didn’t have the money for that. And while Dad might have forced this job on Raoul to punish him, he wasn’t such a tyrant that he was going to make his son work twelve-hour days. 

“Have you been sneaking in here...like, _recently_?” Raoul asked, narrowing his eyes at the guy who, as he put 2 and 2 together in his head, he realized might be his Rocky Racoon. The mask kind of sealed it for him. 

“Uh…”

“I’m just going to take that as a yes,” Raoul muttered, picking up his walkie-talkie and compulsively switching it on and off, more for something to do with his non-flashlight hand than anything else. 

“But I didn’t take anything!” Rocky insisted, hands hovering uselessly at his side since he realized that Raoul wasn’t actually going to attack him or anything. “I just wanted to look at your inventory. I didn’t even realize this place opened back up until I saw you walking around last week. It’s been vacant for years, all this great stuff just sitting here. I thought I was the only one who cared, so…”

He sort of trailed off, eyes darting back down to his ensnared jeans. 

“Um. Can I untangle myself? I promise I won’t take off.”

Even if he did, Raoul probably wouldn’t chase after him. The more they talked, the more it became clear that this was probably just some college kid with an interest in old junk rather than a hardened criminal looking to sell old copper on the black market. The mask was a little off-putting though, and there was something odd about the way the Rocky’s eyes glimmered in the light. Raoul shook off the eerie feeling and told himself he’d been watching too many _Twilight Zone_ re-runs in addition to infomercials. 

“What are you looking for? In here?” Raoul asked. “Trying to start your own scrap heap?”

Rocky laughed shortly and shook his head. He straightened up and Raoul marveled again at how freaking tall he was. No wonder he was able to scale the fence so fast, if he got enough of a running start he could probably jump it. 

“No, I’m...uh...making a pipe organ?” he ended the last word on a questioning note, as if he wasn’t even sure of his goals. “Like, originally, it was going to be an art piece, but I thought I could make it functional, that would be doubly excellent because we live in a throw-away culture, so to make a piece from other people’s trash that wasn’t only beautiful, but _functional_ is more of a statement, I think. But I got all these books from the library and they’re crazy overdue, so I needed to grab more pieces, like, yesterday, but...um. Anyway. Your hours don’t work with my schedule.”

“Is this...for school or something?” Raoul asked, only getting about every third word: Organ. Art. Functional. Rocky’s shoulders rolled uncomfortably and Raoul recognized embarrassment in every inch of his lanky, gawky self. 

“Uh...I don’t do well in a traditional school environment,” he admitted and Raoul felt a strange, but instant kinship with him. “This is...kind of for me, and if other people like it too, then great.”

Raoul wasn’t into art in event the tiniest way, but he nodded like he understood. So this guy was a drop-out loser like him, sneaking into scrap yards at night when other guys their age would probably have dates or parties to go to or would just be plain old sleeping to be alert for their day jobs. 

“We could...I could take you around, if you want,” Raoul offered, mirroring Rocky’s pathetic little shrug with one of his own. “I could turn some lights on. If you see something you like, I could probably draw up a bill - my dad takes the register home at night, but I could just tally everything and give you change and stuff tomorrow.”

“Your Dad?” Rocky echoed, narrowing his eyes at him.

“Uh, yeah,” he nodded, gesturing toward the name screen-printed on his company baseball cap. “He’s Chagny. I’m ‘And Sons.’”

Rocky’s creepy eyes crinkled and Raoul got the sense that he was smiling. “Okay, Andsons. If you’re not busy or anything.”

“You’re the only thing that’s been keeping me busy for weeks,” Raoul admitted. “This’ll be a way better use of my time than messing around with a busted radio and walking around by myself.”

“Thanks,” Rocky said, sounding genuinely grateful. “I’ve got cash, like I said, I just need some specific pieces. I might not even take anything, I’m trying to figure out the key situation. I was going to try and rig up something with typewriter keys, but that is _not_ happening - oh! I could take a look at the radio, if you want, I’m handy in a practical way sometimes also too. Ah. If I talk too much, just...say. Sometimes I talk too much.”

After weeks of static and silence, Raoul was grateful for the noise.

“It’s fine,” he replied, smiling and assuming Rocky was smiling back. “Um. So. Is that medical or…”

“Oh! Uh, no, _well_ , not really,” Rocky babbled, one hand going to adjust the mask self-consciously. “I’m just kind of...not good. In the face.”

Rocky stopped walking and so Raoul got a few steps ahead of him, turning around to peer up at him. The darkness of the yard and the deep shadows thrown by his flashlight didn’t really show anything out of the ordinary. Rocky shifted kind of uncomfortably on the balls of his feet and Raoul realized he’d been staring pretty obnoxiously.

“O...kay,” he decided he didn’t want to know or _need_ to know anything further. Anyway, if he was offended, Rocky might not fix his radio. “Want to look at the radio first? Or look around for piano key stuff?”

“Radio,” Rocky confirmed, seemingly grateful that he wasn’t being asked any more personal questions. “You’re doing me a favor, so I figure I should do one for you first. So we’re square. I mean, I’m kind of in your debt since you didn’t call the cops on me for trespassing - ”

“Don’t worry about it,” Raoul rolled his eyes. “Once you see my sophisticated tactical set-up, you’ll realize you would have gotten away before the cops actually showed. This place is a mess.”

“It’s a goldmine,” Rocky said, without an ounce of sarcasm. Raoul found himself chuckling again. Trespasser, drop-out, starving artist or what, there was no denying this guy was a character.

“Whatever you say,” he smiled, shaking his head. “Whatever you say.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm officially caught up in Erik and Raoul's awkward scrap yard friendship. I am also itching to involve Christine. Somehow.

Raoul learned a few interesting things about Rocky, who took to stopping by the junkyard just to chat every other night or so (he continued to hop the fence until Raoul told him that he could just call out to him and he'd let him in the front gate). His name was actually Erik ('With a K!' Erik informed him emphatically. 'Like a Viking. Which also has the letter 'k' in the middle, so it's a useful mnemonic device. Mnemonic, incidentally, has a silent m in the front, but you know, m-for-memory, m-for-mnemonic.'). He _loved_ to talk (but actually did listen if Raoul gently suggested he take a second to breathe between words). And he evidently lived above a shawarma place because he started showing up with containers of tabbouleh, pita, and hummus ('Do you like Middle Eastern food? Because if you don't want me to bring you any, that's fine, but they always give me way more than I can eat and I don't want to waste food or anything because that would be inconsistent with my life philosophy. I think it's important to have a life philosophy.')

Turned out, Raoul did like Middle Eastern food - he'd never had hummus before and while the texture made him think they'd be like grits (he hated grits, texture issues), it had a way smoother consistency than he was expecting and he found himself looking forward to Erik and his leftovers and conversation.

He made the night pass, at least. And he fixed the radio, though they experienced a little conflict over what to listen to: Raoul was perfectly content with Top 40, rap, and R&B, but Erik preferred hard rock, garage metal, and whatever the late-night DJs on the local college station thought was cool. They both agreed Devo was overplayed, they had a mutual love of Chuck Berry, and were one mind about The Beatles: overrated.

Not surprisingly for a guy trying to build a pipe organ out of junk, Erik was into music. He played piano, violin, and guitar and was working on teaching himself the accordion.

"Because why not?" Erik concluded, swaying back and forth on a rickety swivel chair, spinning occasionally. Just watching him was enough to make Raoul dizzy; turned out the only reason Erik was so still when they first met was due to being stuck to the fence. The guy never stopped twitching. At first, Raoul was a little concerned he was constantly tweaked on drugs (Raoul had always taken the First Lady's advice and just said no), but though Erik was prone to fidgeting and rambling, he was lucid. Eventually he chalked it up to an excess of energy; Raoul's rounds increased two-fold on nights when Erik came to visit because he frequently insisted on 'perambulating' around the scrap yard in order to take a 'constitutional.'

The three-dollar words were hilarious and Raoul asked him what his SAT score looked like. Erik just shrugged and muttered something about not testing well, so Raoul dropped the subject. He was well-acquainted with the uncomfortable, prickly sensation of people prodding unknown open wounds.

That was also why he didn't mention the mask again. Erik turned up every night wearing the same hoodie and hospital mask combo and he never took it off - he never even lowered the hoodie even though the space heater in the office could make the place really stuffy. 'Not good in the face' could mean literally anything from cystic acne to...well, he didn't know what, but probably something nasty.

For his part, Erik was _fascinated_ by Raoul's life story - mostly the fact that he was (in Erik's words) 'a big jock' and that he played _lacrosse_ (which Erik pronounced le-cross-ay, until Raoul corrected him). And no matter how many times Raoul tried to explain how the game worked, Erik never quite got the gist.

"So it's like polo," he concluded.

"No," Raoul shook his head.

"But it basically is. Just without water or horses."

"It's not," Raoul replied. "The sticks have baskets, okay, for the ball to rest in - polo has _mallets_ \- "

"Like croquet," Erik interrupted.

"Yeah, like croquet."

"So lacrosse is more like croquet than polo."

"It's not like croquet _or_ polo - do you even know how to play croquet or polo? Like...do you have _any_ idea what you're even talking about right now?"

"Nope," Erik shook his head sedately. "Just that they're all rich person sports. Right?"

That, Raoul had to admit, was more or less true.

"So," Erik continued, later, following Raoul around on his rounds like a tall, spindly puppy. "When you were jocking - "

"Don't say 'jocking,'" Raoul grimaced, shining his flashlight around like he was taking his job seriously. "You can say 'played sports' or 'played lacrosse' - you can even say 'when you played lay-cross-ay', but don't say 'jocking'."

"Why not?" was Erik's curious reply.

"It sounds...gay," Raoul said and immediately wished he hadn't. The effect on Erik was profound: he stopped moving. Like, _froze_ solid and Raoul remembered his earlier thoughts about prodding open wounds. Glancing up at his face, Raoul saw that his creepy eyes were blinking rapidly, the only movement he perceived at all. For a wild second he thought he might have broken him, like winding up a clock too much. But before he could inquire further, Erik spoke, tightly and nervously but he spoke.

"Sorry," he said shortly. "Wouldn't want to sound _gay_."

Then he lapsed into silence.

 _You fucked up,_ Raoul's brain informed him. _You fucked up. Way to screw up, Raoul! Even basically being a recluse on the night shift surrounded by crap, you still manage to make yourself totally unacceptable as far as basic human contact goes."_

So..." Raoul spoke up when it was clear Erik's train of thought had been utterly derailed. "When I was...uh...jocking. You were wondering..."

Thank God Erik recognized a terrible apology when he heard one. His eyes crinkled and he launched into his questions: Did Raoul get to wear his uniform shirt (Raoul corrected: jersey) to class? (Yes, but only on the day after they won a game.) Were there lacrosse cheerleaders? (Not at his school.) Did Raoul wish there had been lacrosse cheerleaders? (At the time, yes, in hindsight he was glad there weren't.)

"Why?" Erik asked as they rounded the corner around the bathtubs. Then he interrupted himself and exclaimed, "Oh my God, that tub is _gorgeous_ , I need it in my life immediately posthaste at once."

The tub in question was a huge clawfoot affair, rusty around the holes where the hardware had once been and around the corroded drain. There was an unidentifiable black sludge in the corner and it was missing a foot.

"It's so decadent," Erik continued, drawing closer and tugging on Raoul's arm so the flashlight was focused on his newest 'treasure.' "Like, can you imagine owning this tub? Like, who owned this tub? Maybe a duchess."

"You realize we don't have duchesses in the US, right?" Raoul asked, smiling crookedly. He'd been a poli-sci major back when he was in school. Not a devoted student, but he knew enough to know that.

"Maybe she was visiting royalty," Erik continued, unabashed. "Or, like, a Dollar Princess. Do you know about the Dollar Princesses? They were wealthy American girls who were married to impoverished European nobles to shore up their fortunes and get titles for themselves. Winston Churchill's mom was a Dollar Princess. And so was Alva Vanderbilt's daughter Consuelo - she had a great name and the longest neck I've ever seen. Not, like, in person. Since she's not alive anymore. But I saw her picture once and read her life story and it was super fucked-up, but also super sad. I mean, I didn't expect to feel sympathy for her because you just don't expect rich people to have problems. But they do! Anyway, I can totally see Consuelo Vanderbilt lounging in this tub. Possibly during her temporary imprisonment in her bedroom when she refused to marry the man her mother wanted her to marry. It was all very sad fairy tale. So I imagine a lot of crying and soaking in the tub. Definitely this tub. Yes. This tub. Exactly."

"I'll tell my dad," Raoul laughed. "'Tub used by Vanderbilt. Mostly for crying. 200% upcharge.'"

That got Erik laughing and he sensed he was forgiven for the earlier faux pas. "Do you do daytime stuff around here too?" Erik asked. "Or are you strictly Scrap Batman?"

"Scrap Batman," Raoul confirmed. "Daytime stuff includes logging inventory and taking orders and handling money. Higher level stuff, you know? Stuff my dad'd have to trust me to do. And he doesn't. So."

"Oh," Erik said, looking away, scuffing the ground with the toe of his worn-out basketball sneakers (Chuck Taylor was probably the only brand that could accommodate his long, skinny feet). A long pause. Then, "Dads suck. Some dads suck. Sometimes, that is, having a dad sucks. Or a person can suck at the job of being a dad. Either way. Yeah."

Didn't take a genius to realize there was something behind that. Back when he was 'jocking' (okay, okay, in for a penny), Raoul got a lot of shit from some of the guys over being too sensitive and new agey. Mostly when he displayed a modicum of empathy or tried defend their girlfriends from accusations of being a 'crazy bitch' for being upset when their boyfriends were hooking up with other girls. But he wasn't sure if this was a potential open wound, so he side-stepped the issue.

"Ehhhhhhhh," Raoul made a sound halfway between a grunt and moan and shrugged. "He's got a point. Sometimes sons suck."

"Yeah," Erik said quietly, not looking at him. "Sometimes."

He didn't go back in the office when Raoul finished his rounds, instead he inclined his head back toward the gate and said he'd better take off. Raoul felt a little uneasy; they were ending on an off-beat and even though Erik was not the kind of guy who, if placed in a line-up of potential friends, that Raoul would envision himself going out for beers with, he still liked having him around.

"You coming back?" he asked, then, realizing that sounded kind of desperate, added, "And bringing more hummus?"

Erik nodded, brightening up a bit. "Sure! More hummus. I can bring you a sandwich or something. Next time. I didn't think of it. I'm a vegetarian. Do you eat meat?"

Vegetarian. Yeah. Not someone Raoul would pick out of a friendship line-up. And yet...


	3. Chapter 3

Raoul veered slightly off script the next time he stopped for a chat in Gus Daye's driveway. After they exhausted their usual topics (bald spots in the lawn can be covered with a planter! the kindergarteners are basically feral and cannot be trusted with drums), he tentatively asked, "Hey, did you ever teach a kid named Erik? With a k? Like a...Viking?"

The odds were slightly against him; if Erik was around his age, his time at the elementary school might not have overlapped with Gus's. But if, say, Erik was in fifth grade when Gus got started, he'd probably remember him as one of his first students.

Raoul never had Gus as a teacher, but only because he and Christine went to the local parochial school and not the public school where her dad taught. Of course, it was possible Erik wasn't a lifer, that he'd only moved to the area after he was done with school, but if he had lived in the county lines most of his life, it stood to reason he went to the public schools. Given the fact that he talked about "rich people" like they were members of a foreign nation, it was unlikely he'd been privately educated.

Turned out Erik was a local. Gus's eyebrows raised with surprise, then a strange twist set on the corner of his mouth, like he was remembering something unpleasant. But his voice was soft when he said, "Aww, Erik Cohen? Yeah, he's one of mine. Good kid, bright. Shame, though. Real shame."

"You mean his face?" Raoul asked bluntly, all the while trying to seem nonchalant, wiping sweat off his brow the the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

The act fooled no one. Mr. Daye was canny enough to know when he was being pumped for information. Gus cocked his head and looked at Raoul appraisingly. "Where do you know him from?"

"He comes by the scrap yard now and again," Raoul replied (no reason to confirm for Christy's dad that Erik only came at night because Raoul wasn't allowed to work during normal business hours, the guy already clearly pitied him). "He's doing some art thing and picks through looking for pieces. Quirky guy. Just wondered if you knew him at all."

"Oh yeah," Gus's expression cleared and he smiled faintly. "Used to eat lunch in my room every day. Talked my ears off, but that's Erik for you. He's...different, you know. Quirky, like you said. Kids don't like different at that age - separate from the surgeries and the speech stuff and...not a great home environment."

Far from being satisfied with that answer, it just led Raoul to wanting to ask more questions _What surgeries?_  (Okay, no big question mark there, probably something to do with his not good face.) _What speech stuff?_   (Erik talked a lot, but he was intelligible, with an oddly deep voice for such a twiggy person). _What home environment?_   __(That was the million dollar question, Erik never talked about his home life, but Raoul just assumed it was because he was sad and single and lived alone.) He managed to keep the impulse to ask more questions to himself; he sensed that if he pushed, Gus would shut him down. Yard work aside, he wasn't the gossipy type.

"At least he got placed with a nice family," Gus remarked, half to himself. "Glad to hear he's got a project he's working on - he tell you what it is?"

Yep, Raoul confirmed. Pipe organ. Distantly he was aware of Gus chuckling and saying that sounded just like something Erik would do. Complicated, way beyond his skill level, but the kid was nothing if not a cock-eyed optimist.

Raoul nodded as Gus talked, even waved him off as he got in his car and drove to work. Raoul remained motionless in the driveway for a few minutes, mind spinning over the phrase 'placed with.' Foster care? Like... was he an orphan? Or were the parents just not competent? The latter seemed more likely, especially in light of his comments about dads sucking. Where was his mom in all this? And there weren't any other family members who could have taken him in?

Too bad there wasn't anyone else he could lean on for information. Raoul didn't know anyone who might have gone to school with him and for all Erik loved to talk, he sure clammed up when they touched on a subject that troubled him - and Raoul was pretty sure digging for information on his family situation, or his medical history would go beyond 'troubling.'

As a rule, Raoul tried not to get involved in other people's drama, tried to keep his head down and mind his own business. Maybe it was a product of having nothing else interesting going on in his life that he'd developed this deep curiosity on the subject of Erik. The guy was a mystery. A puzzle. And anyway, who _wouldn't_ be a little intrigued by someone who haunted junk yards at midnight in head-to-toe black, but also knew obscure trivia about Winston Churchill?

Maybe it was because he was hard to pin down, to categorize. Raoul had sort of side-stepped easy categorization himself recently. Neither jock, nor adored baby of the family, nor college student, nor _anything._ Just another single guy working a job he hated who still lived in his parents' house with no prospects and no ambition. Pathetic.

Raoul walked the rest of the way back to his own house, running into his own dad in the driveway.

"Hey," he said, for lack of anything else to say. "Going in to work?"

"Yep," Dad said, looking, as he usually did these days, not _at_ his son, but at some distant point over Raoul's left shoulder. Raoul copied the posture and kept his eyes on the neglected basketball hoop over the garage. That was usually the extent of their conversations, but today Dad surprised him, "You take that radio in to get fixed? I was going to junk it, but it's been working just fine the last few days."

"I had a guy take a look at it," Raoul replied, heart lightening a little, in anticipation of getting a long-withheld compliment, Dad's gaze actually flickered to his face, but Raoul was just a second too late to catch his eye. By the time he looked at his father directly, Dad was back to looking behind him.

"Next time ask me first," he said, climbing up into his truck. "Budget's got to be followed."

And he drove off before Raoul explained that Erik hadn't taken any money. Just another favor. But Dad was long gone by then. Heart back to feeling like a block of lead in his chest, Raoul went into the house, heading straight for a shower first, then to bed to be alert for the night shift. He turned the water as hot as he could stand, as if trying to wash off the guilt and disappointment.

He hoped Erik stopped by that night, he thought as he crawled into bed. If the radio stayed cooperative, they might be able to pick up the 76ers game and he'd see how long Erik could listen without his head exploding with confusion or passing out from boredom.

There was another nice benefit to having Erik around: gave Raoul something to look forward to.

* * *

 

Whenever he got back from his midnight ramblings Erik tried to be _really_ quiet - like, beyond quiet, _silent_ since Mr. and Dr. K had work in the morning and the kids had to be up for school and daycare. Since he was a houseguest of indefinite occupation, he tried to be the most conscientious houseguest in the history of ever. Most nights he got in without a problem, but tonight it didn’t matter that he took forever sliding his key into the lock and _slowly_ turned the handle, pulling the door slightly upward as he did so the hinges wouldn’t squeak. It didn’t even matter that he tiptoed in and slid the bolt back into place with all the care of a guy trying to diffuse a bomb - Mr. and Dr. K were already up.

“Erik, sweetie,” Dr. K (it was as close to informal as he could get, even though she’d patiently told him time and time again that she’d like it if he called her Roya), “come sit down.”

“I’m sorry,” he said automatically, though he wasn’t immediately sure what he’d actually done. He was used to apologizing for existing, so he assumed he’d done something.

“You’re not in trouble,” Mr. K said immediately, giving up his seat on the couch and gesturing that Erik could take it (unlike his wife, he’d never said that Erik should call him Davoud - or even Dave, the way his friends did - probably because he knew Erik wouldn’t do it). “Just sit down, kiddo, okay?”

“O...kay,” Erik said hesitantly, sitting gingerly at the very edge of the sofa because it wouldn’t do to make himself comfy-cozy if they were going to kick him out. (They couldn’t kick him out, right, the court said he was legally their responsibility until he was eighteen so they couldn’t kick him out he had done anything _that bad_ to make them kick him out, so they weren’t kicking him out. Logically they weren’t kicking him out. Right?)

Dr. K grabbed hold of his right and and put it in her lap, smiling up at him in her ‘This won’t hurt a bit,’ way that she probably looked at kids right before she gave them a shot. Mr. K was still wearing his Dockers and school badge (parent-teacher conferences all week, Erik remembered) and though Dr. K had divested herself of her lab coat and exchanged her heels for slippers, she was still wearing her work blouse and pearls - they’d been waiting up for him and Erik felt tremendously guilty when he looked at the microwave clock and realized it was way past midnight.

“You’re not in trouble,” she repeated gently. “We just want to ask you if you could do us a favor.”

“A favor?” he echoed, a little stupefied. How could _he_ do _them_ a favor?

“Next time you go out,” Mr. K said, with the same kindly tone and benevolent smile. (Had they rehearsed this? Well, why not, they had plenty of time after putting the kids to bed). “Leave us a note, okay? Just let us know when you leave, what time you expect to come back.”

“That way we know about what time we should start worrying about you,” Dr. K squeezed his hand briefly, but not hard enough to hurt. “I know, I know, how far can you go, you don’t have a car, but even so. As it is I’ve been worrying since Wheel of Fortune ended - and if I worry through Jeopardy _that one_ beats me and it puts a damper on my whole night.”

“I would have beaten you anyway,” Mr. K interjected smugly. “Two sports categories _and_ a daily double to boot.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Dr. K continued, apparently still smarting from her Jeopardy defeat. “Just a note, please, Erik. Stick it on the fridge, okay?”

“Okay,” Erik agreed readily enough, starting to relax. Leave a note next time. Got it. That was way better than being thrown out. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright, really,” Dr. K said, giving his hand another reassuring squeeze before she got up off the couch and moved in the direction of the bedroom. “I know you’re used to...being more independent. It’s not a rule, just a favor. A courtesy, if you like.”

“I’ll leave a note next time,” Erik promised. She gave him another sweet smile before bidding him goodnight and heading for bed.

Mr. K stayed behind observing impassively as Erik unfolded the couch into a bed and retrieved blankets and pillows from the hall closet. Erik sat down on the edge of the sagging mattress, unlacing his sneakers and lowering the hood for his sweatshirt, but otherwise he didn’t undress for bed since he got the sense Mr. K wasn’t done talking to him.

“So...where are you off to?” he asked, glancing at the bedroom door. “At night. Anywhere special? Movies? Shows?”

“Um, sometimes,” Erik said, though his part-time job at the music store down the street didn’t really keep him so flush with cash that he could afford nightly movie or concert tickets - mostly concerts, he had a way easier time getting through the doors at the grungy clubs and bars in town than he did silver-haired grandmas who ripped tickets at the Cineplex. “Mostly the scrap yard - ”

“The _abandoned_ scrap yard?” Mr. K interrupted, mouth thinning under his most excellent ‘stache (Erik thought it was the rare man who could carry a full-on mustache, but Mr. K was one of the lucky few, like Tom Selleck. Yeah, he was basically a Persian Tom Selleck.)

“It’s not abandoned anymore,” Erik explained. “A guy named Chagny bought it. Chagny and Sons, but I’ve only met one Son so far.”

“Philippe?” Mr. K asked, brow furrowing. “If it’s the same family I’m thinking of.”

Erik shook his head. He didn’t know of any Philippe, just a Raoul. He particularly liked the name ‘Raoul,’ (way better name than ‘Andsons,’ which was the moniker Erik ascribed to him before he asked his name). It was super fancy-sounding, so Erik was _very_ surprised when he looked it up in the Khan's Baby Name Book and realized it was just the French way of saying ‘Ralph.’ Raoul in no way seemed like a Ralph. A Stefan, maybe, or a Renier. Not a ‘Ralph.’

When Erik asked him about where it came from (and informed him that in no _way_ was he anything akin to a ‘Ralph,’ Raoul said it was a family name.

‘Leftover from slavery,” he said with a downturn of his mouth and a tone in his voice that made Erik’s spine ripple with unease. “Louisiana...yeah. It’s not like my family’s _actually_ French. When my grandmother was alive, she pronounced it ‘ _Rah_ -ool,’ with a drawl, not ‘Rah- _ool_ ’. Hear the difference?’

Erik did, actually, and asked what pronunciation he preferred.

“Honestly?” Raoul replied with a crooked smile. “I think I’d prefer Ralph.”

Erik’s mind wandered away, remembering the conversation (he’d informed Raoul, with a pained expression no one could see) that he’d stick to Raoul since it was just infinitely better than ‘Ralph.’ Kind of like how Erik-with-a-k was way more interesting than Eric-with-a-c and an infinitely better spelling than Erich-with-a-ch which just got mispronounced). Mr. K brough him back to the present with a quietly voiced, “Oh.”

“So _that’s_ what he’s doing now.” he continued after a pause. “Shame.”

“You know him?” Erik asked, looking up at Mr. K with interest. Raoul mentioned where he went to high school, but somehow it never occurred to Erik to ask if he’d been one of Mr. K’s students.

“I had him for freshman bio and junior year chem,” Mr. K replied, then rolled his eyes. “Got to know his parents pretty well - they were in my office a _lot_ before they accepted that the kid wasn’t destined for a career in the hard sciences. It wasn’t a question of aptitude, just interest.”

“No interest in chemistry?” Erik replied, a little surprised; he found _everything_ interesting.

“No interest in applying himself,” Mr. K clarified. “He’s the kind of kid who everything comes easy to him, so he was happy coasting along with a C-average - his parents were _not._ Didn’t hurt his transcript too badly in the end, though. Got into a great school, but I was a little worried for him. He just never learned to work. Well, good-night, kiddo. See you in the morning.”

“‘Night,” Erik echoed, then spoke up right before Mr. K left the living room. “Uh...what’s a shame?”

“Oh,” he scrubbed a hand over his face (not mussing a single hair in his excellent ‘stache). “Family’s been through a rough patch, I heard. He lost his mom almost two years ago. Went off-course. I didn’t know they’d bought the scrap yard or that Raoul was working there. I was just surprised. It’s not...I shouldn’t have said it was a shame, I’m sure he’ll get back on his feet eventually. Does he seem okay when he talks to you?”

“Yeah,” Erik replied automatically, then paused. Okay could mean a lot of things, really. Raoul was a pretty decent conversationalist (and a great listener, which was all Erik really required from other people), except for when it came to himself. The phrase ‘fuck-up’ was applied with regularity. And the comment about sons sucking. ‘Useless’ had already been mentioned once or twice. They were insults Erik had lobbed at him plenty of times, but he’d never heard a person apply them to himself with such frequency as Raoul did.

“Mostly okay,” he modified his reply. “I think he’s kind of not happy. Or maybe he’s just bored. His radio didn’t work for a long time, but I fixed it. I think that cheered him up kind of a little.”

Mr. K smiled his Tom Selleck smile. “That’s nice. Okay. Note tomorrow, if you go out.”

“I’ll remember,” Erik vowed. Once Mr. K shut the bedroom door he changed into sweats and a threadbare t-shirt, arranging the blankets over the springs so they didn’t dig into his sides as much. When the lady from social services checked the place over, they met the requirements, they had a bedroom for him since the kids bunked together, but the bed was a twin and the pull-out couch was a queen so even though the mattress was pokey it was more comfortable for him than the bed, provided that he slept on it diagonally.

Dr. K said he wasn’t doing his back any favors and that she’d buy him a better bed, but he demurred. The couch was fine. He didn’t want to put them to any trouble; they’d done plenty for him already.

That sucked about Raoul’s mom, Erik thought as he lay in the dark, tired, but not quite able to sleep. He’d never mentioned her, but Erik assumed it was because he didn’t talk about his own parents, so it wasn’t a topic of general interest. Should he say something next time? Or deliberately not say anything and act super surprised if it came up? Maybe not _super_ surprised. Maybe just regular surprised.

_Oh, no, your mom passed away? That’s awful, I’m so sorry, you must miss her._

Eh. Maybe not. Maybe that was laying it on too thick. Not all kids had the kinds of moms you’d miss. Not in Erik’s experience.

_Oh, wow, your mom passed away? I’m sorry. That sucks._

Better. Then again, he thought as he lifted his head slightly to peel off the mask he’d forgotten to remove before bed, maybe it wouldn’t come up at all. It wasn’t like Erik recounted his personal history. He preferred talking about other people’s lives than talking about his own. Way less complicated. And more interesting. And (usually) less sad.


	4. Chapter 4

Erik didn't turn up the next night. Or the night after. Raoul wasn't entirely sure if the weight he felt in his stomach as ten o'clock rolled around (he never came later than ten, though he often stayed past twelve), was disappointment or hurt feelings. Either way, he had a sneaking suspicion his Erik-less nights were responsible for his recent bout of insomnia. Could it be called insomnia if he was having trouble sleeping during the day? Either way, operating on six or few hours of sleep in a twenty-four hour cycle was making him crabby and thus _not_ a great guy to have around the house. Dad didn't need more reasons to resent him.

Having already gotten his early morning jog in, but unable to stand being restless in bed, Raoul decided to take himself for a walk. An aimless walk, away from the 'burbs and toward the nice part of downtown, with the brownstones and the little parks. The branch of the main public library was probably open, he vaguely thought he might check something out. Dad had canceled his _Sports Illustrated_ subscription when he'd gone away to school and naturally hadn't renewed it since he'd come home. They let people take the back issues home for a week, or at least they had when Raoul was in high school.

Huh. Speaking of high school, they also kept a stock of yearbooks from the public high school and junior high. It'd be interesting (just, you know, intellectually), to figure out when Erik dropped out of school. If he'd stuck with it through high school and dropped out in college or if he hadn't actually graduated.

He was standing on the sidewalk, leaning against the wrought iron gate in front of the park, digging through his wallet for his library card (when there were more receipts than cash inside the folds it was probably a sign he needed to clean it out) when he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye that made his head snap up. A figure clad head-to-toe in black with a profile and jerky way of moving that was incredibly distinctive; there couldn't possibly be two dudes in the city who so closely resembled a baby giraffe in motion, could there?

Nope. Erik was at the park, patiently trailing a few steps behind a chubby-cheeked toddler with olive skin and brown hair who was stopping to pick up and inspect every single twig, rock, or leaf in his path.

"No, no, no, Reza," Erik said, crouching down next to him and holding his hand out for the pebble the kid evidently decided looked delicious. "Not in the mouth. Can I have that? _Thank_ you."

_What the hell?_

Raoul's brain short-circuited. Erik had a _kid_? Raoul had been absolutely sure he was a virgin, if not...well. Given his reaction to the word 'gay' being bandied about Raoul suspected that Erik had at least been teased about that potential, if not...but...but...it just didn't make _sense._ Especially in the context of his own single-self. Like, just to keep harmony in the universe, he ought to expect a random girl to come barreling down the street and jump on him, overcome with amorous desire. Just to balance out the fact that Raoul hadn't gotten laid since he left school and _Erik had an actual human child._

"Raoul? Hi!"

"Hi," Raoul managed back weakly, having been spotted as Erik stood up to toss the pebble away from little Reza's notice. Erik scooped the kid up (the kid giggled and whooped as he was lifted up, it had to be like a rocket blast-off for someone that small to be lifted that high) and jogged over to him. The hoodie and mask were in place as usual, a sharp contrast to the little guy's stripped overalls and Weeboks. Raoul managed a teeny-tiny wave and a grin for the kid. "Hi there."

"Reza," Erik encouraged him, giving the toddler a jostle. "This is Raoul - Raoul, this is Reza. Both your names begin with R! Isn't that fascinating? Anyway, say, 'Hi, Raoul!'"

Reza said nothing, but he did look up at Raoul with big brown eyes and favor him with a brief smile.

"He says hi," Erik reassured Raoul, as though he was in danger of being offended by a two-year-old's lack of manners. "Just telepathically, sometimes."

"That's cool," Raoul replied, smiling back at the kid (no, _really_ , how?). "I picked up his vibes...so...you're...uh. You have a..."

"Babysitting," Erik said and Raoul could swear he'd never felt such an amazing combination of relief and understanding wash over him before in his life. _Babysitting._ As in, watching someone else's kid. As in, Erik was not the father of this kid. Or presumably any kids. The universe suddenly shifted back into alignment and the fact that Raoul did not have a gaggle of groupies throwing themselves at him suddenly did not seem like an injustice. "Stomach bug at the daycare and I don't have work today, so his mom asked if I could watch him. And I said yes because who honestly watches _People's Court_?"

Raoul did, actually, at least he had for the last few days because he was awake and there was literally nothing else on TV. But he didn't say that. Erik was so well-informed that he developed a paranoia about being thought stupid by him. "Reza, huh? That's a cool name."

"It means 'contentment,'" Erik said, shifting his hold on Reza who was trying to lean forward to grab the spikes on the fence (probably to see what they tasted like). "It totally works for him since he's a pretty happy kid most of the time. I mean, everyone has their limits, don't they? Like, if you can't talk, but you have thoughts and opinions, that's super frustrating, so if he gets cranky or throws a fit, it's easy to be sympathetic. Like, I hear you kid, but I also have an obligation to keep you alive until your parents come home, so I won't let you walk into the pond, sorry, but let it out."

Erik's comments about not being able to talk reminded Raoul about Mr. Daye's comments on 'speech issues.' He was listening really hard, trying to pick up on any syllables that sounded off to him, but he couldn't detect a problem. Maybe it cleared up over time. Or he got treatment for it. It wasn't like Erik was shy about talking, it was possible he worked through the issue himself by dogged years of practice.

Reza started to belie Erik's assessment of his character at little by fussing and complaining, in his high-pitched little voice, "Ick! Ick!"

"That's what he calls me," Erik said, eyes crinkling in a way that Raoul assumed meant he was smiling under the mask. "Totally apropos, right? Okay, buddy, we can go back to the playground. It's nice to see you by daylight, Raoul, did you change your hours or are you just taking the air?"

Raoul explained that he was just going to the library for magazines. Same hours. Nothing changed.

"Okay," Erik nodded, putting Reza down on the ground since the kid was working himself up into a tantrum. "I'll probably come see you again soon, it's just his mom and dad were like, 'Can you leave a note when you leave?' and I was like, 'Okay, sure,' but I don't know how specific they want the note to be so I've been leaving notes and coming back early, but that's...I don't sleep well, so early for me is late for them, but I don't want them to wait up, but I'll just put an alarm on my watch tonight, if I come see you. Is it okay if I come see you? Like, I don't have to come see you if you don't want me to come see you, I kind of stalled on the organ so I'd literally just be coming to see you. Is that okay?"

What with Reza already wandering off toward the playground equipment, it seemed a bad time for Raoul to make major inquiries about Erik's living situation, but the fact that he seemed to live at the same house has his babysitting charge was decidedly not normal. At least, he didn't think it was normal, not for the babysitter to live with the family. Was Erik actually the nanny? Did he just say he was the babysitter to sound more manly? Granted 'babysitter' wasn't a super manly word, but it was a hell of a lot more masculine than nanny.

"Come by and see me," Raoul said. "More than okay. I missed having you around."

Before he could stop himself, the phrase slipped out and Raoul quickly tried to recover.

"I mean, the radio doesn't talk back," he said hastily, though _what_ he was trying to recover from he had no idea. The insinuation of a closer relationship with Erik than he thought was normal? A suggestion that he had affection for him, above and beyond tolerating his company? Was it really so _bad_ if Erik thought that? He did like the guy, what was so wrong with saying that he did? But all of Raoul's social instincts screamed at him to do something to put Erik in his place. As an acquaintance on the periphery of Raou's notice who was useful because he was a potential customer, because he could fix the radio, because he provided a material service that Raoul could take advantage of. _Not_ because he liked him. Not because he just wanted a friend. "Or bring food."

Erik didn't seem offended by the qualifications or the demands for take-out. He nodded agreeably and said he'd see Raoul later, then he ambled back off after Reza, who'd taken off for the swings and was in danger of getting kicked in the head.

Suddenly, Raoul felt dog-tired, and the whim to grab some magazines from the library quickly faded to nothing. He managed to snag a few hours more of sleep before heading to the scrap yard. No great loss. If Erik came by he wouldn't have time to read through a bunch of magazines anyway.

* * *

 

Erik was privately congratulating himself on not saying anything about Raoul's mom. Playing it cool. Even as the phrase 'SORRY ABOUT YOUR MOM' played over and over in his head, fighting to get said because that was the kind of thing a person _should_ say in that kind of situation. It was okay, though. Erik had a long track record of not saying what he was supposed to and saying instead everything that he wasn't. Got him into trouble over and over again, but though he absorbed information readily enough, no one ever accused him of being a quick learner when it came to anything that mattered.

**_The school says he's stupid, I_ _say he's stupid. So what does that make him?_ **

"Want to go on the swings, bud?" Erik picked up Reza, shaking his head slightly to dislodge the negative self-talk. Not that this was self-talk. It was just talk. About his self. By another self. A dad-shaped self, but never mind about that now, he had another kid to worry about outside himself. No negative talk for Reza. No way was Erik scrambling his brains by being a jerk to him. Reza's brain was going to remain blissfully free of negative talk, self or otherwise, as long as Erik was his babysitter.

The toddler swings were adjacent to the normal swings and it took some negotiating to get Reza to put his legs in the right slots. It didn't mean he was stupid. It just meant he'd only been doing this human thing for two years and remembering how to sit in a swing was so not a high priority in comparison to remembering to eat without choking or walk without falling on his face.

Reza also didn't like being pushed on the swings from behind, he liked Erik to stand in front of him and push him that way. Which was fine too. Just because someone wasn't performing an action in the normal way didn't mean they were doing it wrong. That was one thing that he learned from being in the 'alternative learning and special education unit' for most of elementary school. _How_ a person got through the day wasn't nearly as important as the fact that they got through the day at all.

"Three," Erik counted down, holding onto the front of Reza's swing and drawing it back and back and back, "two...one...blast off!"

He let go and Reza laughed, giggling his cute little baby-giggle, prompting parents (mostly moms) in the area to turn and smile at them. The smiles faltered when the saw Erik, turned to uncertainty, concern, fear when they saw the hospital mask.

"Not contagious!" he informed the woman nearest him who was _just_ about to put her baby in a swing, but seemed to think better of it. "It's to keep _me_ from getting sick, not to protect other people from me. Just so you know."

"Oh!" she flushed red, clearly embarrassed and stuffed her baby hastily in the swing next to Reza. "Oh, I didn't...um...you never _know_ and you like to be cautious..."

"Oh yeah," Erik nodded agreeably. "Babies have teeny-tiny immune systems. I so get it."

And he smiled at her, which she couldn't see. She smiled at him, which he could. She pushed her kid listlessly for a minute or two, seemingly to prove a point to herself, then mom and baby left without another word.

That was okay. Really, it was. Reza was still too little to notice if parents nudged their kids away from him once they saw who had accompanied him to the park. And it was natural that people would be spooked by the mask. Hospital masks tended to equate in most people's minds to disease and disease was to be avoided. Erik understood that the world was germy. That was why he wore the mask in the first place: it was his only line of defense against cold and flu germs taking a direct path right into his head.

If he took it off, he'd suffer the double-whammy of a sinus infection _and_ having people, like that lady with the baby, not just leery of him but actively scared. Leery was okay. Nervous was fine. He tried to talk first, explain, put them at ease. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. No skin off his nose (like, literally, he did not have a nose to remove skin from); people did not owe him conversation or companionship. No one was obligated to like him. That was another lesson he'd learned early: no one owed anyone else anything. Not love, not security, not courtesy. Kindness could be found among strangers, loathing among blood relations.

For his part, Erik tried to be nice to everyone. It was his life philosophy: be nice to everyone and everything (animals too!) because you have no guarantee that you aren't the one nice person they might encounter that day. One nice person could make a huge difference. Like, not just in someone's day, but in someone's whole life. If it happened to him, it could happen to anyone.

Reza was holding his arms out to him, opening and closing his fists. "Ick! Ick!"

"You want out? Okay," Erik said. He fished around in the pocket for his sweatshirt for the child-leash Mr. K swore by. Erik tried to let the kid be free as much as possible, but he usually leashed Reza up when they went near the pond. The kid was a runner and Erik didn't know how to swim, so he needed some way to reel him in if he got too close to the water. "Want to say hi to the ducks? Then we can go get Jazzy-Jazz from school. Sound good?"

"Quack-quack!" was Reza's enthusiastic response, so Erik secured the velcro around the back of the kid's overalls and let him lead the way to the pond. As they walked, he pondered something he did not often give much thought to: what Mr. K was going to cook for dinner. Usually he prepped something with chicken or beef with a side of lentils or chickpeas for Erik (being nice to animals involved not eating them), and he might not have much leftover for Raoul. He could always swing by the Khans favorite Middle Eastern market and grab a wrap to go with lamb or something (being nice to people involved not judging them if they decided to eat meat). Then again, lamb was an acquired taste. Hopefully Raoul could acquire the taste very quickly.

It was nice to see him and know that Erik was capable of just enough impulse control not to make a big deal about his mom. Maybe he could practice a variety of responses, just in case Raoul brought her up. Or didn't bring her up. It was a relief to know Raoul didn't mind him coming around without the potential for making a sale; it was almost like they were friends. Erik _really_ wanted to be friends and he wasn't sure if Raoul was lukewarm on the idea or not and he didn't want to ask, just in case the answer was no.

Maybe tonight he'd ask Raoul more about his job. Mr. K seemed to think that working the night shift at the scrap yard (which sounded like a most excellent job to Erik since you'd have all the time in the world to dig around among the different materials and get first dibs on the best pieces), was not, in fact, a great career choice. Given that Raoul did not seem to have the best opinion of himself, Erik assumed that he was in agreement with Mr. K. Maybe they could career-counsel, talk about what Raoul would like to be doing and see what he needed to do to make it happen. Raoul had a lot to say about the game of lacrosse, apparently he'd been really good at playing. Maybe he could translate those skills into a coaching career.

He was fairly sure that career counselors charged by the hour. So if they spent an hour brainstorming future careers, ten minutes figuring out if Raoul liked lamb, and another hour and twenty minutes for doing the rounds and seeing if anything really amazing had come in over the last few days, that meant Erik could conservatively estimate that he'd be back at the Khans' no later than midnight, if he hustled getting back. Bed. Then up for work tomorrow at ten.

That was thirty-six hours of his life totally figured out. The sensation of knowing exactly where he was going and what he'd be doing for thirty-six hours provided him with a sense of stability and peace that had been rare for the last...um...most of his life. Erik decided he'd enjoy it while it lasted. There were no guarantees, after all.


	5. Chapter 5

"Did your school make you take one of those achievement aptitude tests?" Erik asked, spinning around on his favorite swivel chair like it was a merry-go-round.

"Mmm-mmm," Raoul shook his head in the negative, unable to respond with his mouth full of a delicious combination of lamb, sprouts and some kind of garlic sauce that was _heaven_. Erik was going to have to give him the name of this shawarma place, Raoul was slowly becoming addicted to the food. After he swallowed he explained that his school really discouraged students from pursuing trades or technical school after graduation. "They want us to all go to college, that way they can write that they have, like, a 97% college acceptance rate or something that looks good on the brochure."

Of course, once you were _in_ college you were on your own. Didn't develop good study habits? Didn't figure out _why_ you wanted to pursue your particular major? Didn't have any plans with what you were going to do with your degree? Too bad. You should have figured that out somewhere along the way, on your own.

"Wow," Erik said, eyes bugging out a little bit. His eyes were brown, Raoul realized in the better light of the office. Just really light brown, but not green enough to qualify as hazel. Unusual, but not that strange once you got right down to it. "My school talked about the graduation rate. College is just kind of a bonus. The kids who got accepted had their names and their colleges posted outside guidance on the bulletin board."

"Yeah, my school did that too," Raoul nodded. "For certain colleges, Harvard and places like that."

"And you were at Harvard?" Erik asked questioningly, right as Raoul took a bite.

Bad timing, but Raoul swallowed quickly and shook his head. " _Howard_. Some people call it the black Harvard, though."

"And they both start with H!" Erik said, as if in triumph. Then he ducked his head and chuckled, "Sorry. Too much _Sesame Street_ with Reza."

"Don't worry about it," Raoul smiled and finished up his sandwich. Good to the last bite - could have used chips, though. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if the shawarma place had chips, but he thought better of it; no need to ask Erik to spend extra money. Maybe he should offer to pay for the sandwich, since there was no way Mr. Vegetarian could claim a lamb sandwich as leftovers. "He was a cute kid, how'd you get that gig, anyway? Don't you work at a record store?"

"Music shop," Erik clarified. "Not just records and casettes, they sell instruments, sheet music, give lessons. I restring guitars, do general repairs, that was what I was hired for, anyway. I don't do much front of house unless they're desperate. The mask freaks out the customers. Anyway, I don't get paid for watching Reza, it's just...a favor. To his parents. They've been beyond nice to me, I owe them, like, a billion favors - seriously, into the afterlife. I told them that I'd go take care of their graves and everything to make up for how nice they've been to me. Dr. K said she appreciated the offer, but it was morbid, so, the thought was nice, but maybe don't talk about stuff like that out loud."

Raoul was familiar with that mindset. Even when Frankie called him on the phone in tears she couldn't bring herself to say 'heart attack' too loudly. Mom's heart stopped. Mom's heart gave out. Mom had a _heart attack_ , whispered, so low, like if God couldn't hear the words, he wouldn't take her.

"I've got two nephews and a niece," Raoul said. "But my sisters don't ask me to watch them. Thank God, because I wouldn't know what to do with them. I've never even changed a diaper."

"Really?" Erik asked, brow furrowing like diaper changing was a universal experience. "It's not hard - like, never-never? In your whole life?"

"Nope," Raoul shrugged. "I'm the youngest, so I got _my_ diapers changed, but never returned the favor for anyone else."

"I'm an only child, but I had...well, I _have_ cousins," Erik clarified, speech faltering slightly. "Lots and lots of babysitting under my belt. School ended at two, no one was getting off work until five or later and it's not like I had...uh...well. It's not hard, babysitting. Kids don't need much, you just have to pay attention."

 _Not like I had..._ what? _Friends_ was the answer Raoul suspected.

"You didn't do band or anything after school?" Raoul asked, trying to poke at the truth, but not wanting to overstep. "No sports?"

"Ha!" Erik barked out a laugh. "You jest, sir. No, no sports. No band, either. You had to rent the instrument from the school if you wanted to take it home and that was just too expensive."

"So, how'd you learn to string guitars and stuff?" Raoul asked, leaning forward curiously. The effect it had on Erik was noticeable, he stopped swirling around on the chair and sat up, shoulders hitching uncomfortably, long spidery fingers gripping his bony knees through his jeans; like he was being subject to the inquisition.

"Um...my grandma," he said, looking not at Raoul, but at the floor between them. "She got me some music lessons, she had a friend who was retired and he took me on for free. Weekends. She'd tell my parents I was helping her with errands. And I'd practice on her floor. She was on the third, we were on the first, so they didn't know for the longest time. She had a piano too, but she taught me how to play that herself when I was _really_ little."

Erik's neck was bent forward enough that the hoodie slipped back on his head. A piece of black, curly hair sprang forth onto his forehead and Erik stuffed it back under with a convulsive gesture, tightening the strings on the hood as he did.

Raoul licked his lips, sensing he had to proceed cautiously. "Your parents didn't like the noise?"

Erik shook his head, still not looking up. "No. They didn't."

_Too much. You pushed too much. Don't get involved in his business._

But just as Raoul was about to change the subject (the first thought that occurred to him was to ask for a take-out menu from the shawarma place), Erik looked up and spoke.

"My parents kind of didn't want me around so much," Erik said hesitantly. "Um. It's not, like, a happy thing to talk about. My parents. They're...um. They weren't happy with me. They weren't happy at all, in general, but they could have been. They thought they could have been. If...not for me."

"They didn't want kids?" Raoul asked, not trying to keep the sympathy from his voice. He'd known a few people like that in his life, a few kids who were just straight-up surprises and their parents never stepped up to the plate. Or kids who were planned as part of a checklist in life: degree, job, spouse, house, kids, dog. Not had because their parents particularly wanted them, but because it was just what people did.

"Oh, no, they wanted kids," Erik said, surprising Raoul with his reply. "Like, three or four, I think. They just didn't want a kid like me, that's all."

"What's wrong with you?" Raoul asked, defensively. Erik looked at him with quizzical astonishment, as though not quite sure whether or not Raoul was pulling his leg. Seriously, though, Raoul didn't get it. It was like Gus said, Erik was quirky, _different_ , but not a bad guy. Raoul supposed it was possible that he'd been a really difficult kid, but he really, _really_ doubted it.

Erik got up then, and Raoul rose from his chair as well, worried that he was going to just walk out. But he didn't. He paced, as well as he could on such long legs in such a small space and gave Raoul a side-long look, an assessing look. _How much can I tell you?_ he seemed to be thinking. _How much do you really want to know?_

"Parents have ideas," Erik said finally, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. "Of what they want their kids to be like. Smart. Cute. Easy, you know. Like them, but better, I think? And...and if they're disappointed...I guess it's just disappointing when your kid is _none_ of those things. Like, they're supposed to be a part of you. Kids, I mean, are supposed to be...an extension of their parents. Like branches of a tree And if they're _nothing_ like you or what you want or what you expect...it makes sense that they're not happy. And the more you try to make them happy, the more they're reminded of why they're unhappy - it's you, you're the problem, after all and being around them just makes it worse - and then it's better for everyone if you're just...if you just...disappear. Or try as hard as you can to disappear. I'm sorry, that was a lot. I didn't mean to pile all that on you. Sorry. It's weird. Sorry."

"No, no, it's okay," Raoul said, but he had a sinking feeling in his bones that it was _not._

The thing about kids being branches of the parental tree struck a chord with Raoul, like it was something he'd been told long ago by someone in authority. Wasn't there some Bible thing about branches bearing good fruit? Or was he mixing it up with the verse about the mustard seed? Either way, he thought he could understand, at least a little. Though, in comparison to what Erik was saying, his own issues with his dad didn't seem all _that_ bad. Raoul was the at-fault party there. He was the one who, through his actions, screwed up his own life. It was up to him to un-screw it up. Which was possible. Difficult, but possible.

Erik though...it sounded like his parents took issue with him for existing. How was someone supposed to change the fact of their existence?

"Uh," Raoul continued after a pause. "You can...talk. If you want. _I'm_ sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy. Um. Want to take a walk around the yard?"

Erik nodded. "I'm going to go, after that, I think. Courtesy curfew and all."

"Sure," Raoul said, understandingly. "But if you want to talk more - or, you know, _don't_ want to talk more, I get it. Whichever. It's fine. Tomorrow or whenever you come back."

On impulse Raoul reached up and gave Erik's upper arm a squeeze. What he _really_ wanted to do was give him a hug, but he wasn't sure they were the kind of friends - yeah, he was pretty sure they'd officially crossed the line into friendship - who hugged.

Erik's eyebrows went up and he tilted his chin down to look at Raoul's hand on his arm, as if confirming that it was real. Then his eyes crinkled up. He smiled, even if Raoul couldn't see it to confirm. He kept his hand there for a few seconds, then let it drop back to his side. It was unreal how skinny his arms were. The vegetarian thing might need to be reconsidered, Raoul was worried he wasn't eating right. Maybe next time he'd bring snacks...but Erik would have to take off the mask to eat. And Raoul had a feeling that wasn't going to happen.

"Thanks," Erik said. Then he cleared his throat and added. "Um. I know you think that you're kind of...not doing life adequately. Or...I get that you think you're not good at...things. Or maybe that things haven't worked out the way you want. And I'm really sorry about that, that you feel that way. But I just wanted to say that you're really nice. And maybe you're not good at keeping your life on a schedule. But I think you're a good person and that's...important. The most important. Being a good person. Which you are. So. Yeah."

Then he mirrored Raoul's gesture, giving his arm a squeeze as well. Erik's fingertips were really cold, Raoul felt it through his fake uniform shirt. But he smiled up at him and said, simply, "Thanks."

As Raoul emptied his pockets when he got home, in preparation of washing his clothes, the piece of paper with Christine's number fell out. The ink had faded until it was basically illegible, a ghost of itself. He had the number memorized by now, but he still kept hold of the paper, like a talisman. If he lost it, somehow he felt with certainty that he'd also lost his window of opportunity to give her a call. 

Maybe it would be easier if he called for a purpose beyond just saying hi. Maybe it would be easier if he called because he wanted her help or expertise. She was an education major, wasn't she? Surely she'd taken some child development classes. Maybe he could ask her how he could better talk to Erik. What questions he should ask, what questions he should avoid. 

The house was empty. Dad had already gone to work, so there was no one around to overhear him.

Raoul picked the kitchen phone up off the receiver. It was a rotary phone, it took forever to dial the number, but he did it. Then he waited.

_Ring. Ring. Riiiiiiiiiing._

"Hello?"

Raoul slammed the phone back down, unable to summon the wherewithal to say, 'Sorry, wrong number.'

God, he was such a coward. Useless, regardless of what Erik said. He didn't know the whole picture. He didn't understand. Anyway, Raoul hadn't been _that_ nice to him, what with taking his food and letting him fix the radio for free. If Erik thought he was still paying off his initial debt from that first night they met, it was returned with interest. Erik didn't owe him anything. But he continued to give and Raoul continued to take. A leech. A mooch. 

Pathetic.

* * *

 

Raoul should be a therapist, Erik decided. He had all the things a therapist ought to have to be good at their jobs, minus an understanding of abnormal psychology. He was compassionate. Nice. Easy to talk to.

Erik had seen a _lot_ of therapists over the course of his life. Some good, some...actually really terrible. He wasn't seeing anyone currently. Therapists cost money, money he did not have and money he was not willing to let the Khans spend on him. Since he wasn't enrolled in school, he didn't even have the benefit of seeing someone of dubious skill level through the high school. Even though he was still technically classified as 'at-risk,' in their city once you turned sixteen, you were no longer required to attend public school. Sophomore year had been...sporadic. To describe things generously, so as soon as Erik turned sixteen and was no longer in danger of being picked up for truancy, he dropped out. He'd had enough of school to last him a lifetime. Several lifetimes.

It was the only serious disagreement he'd had with the Khans. Mr. K believed in the value of formal education, wanted Erik to enroll at the fancy prep school where he worked. Since he had guardianship, he was fairly sure that Erik's tuition would be waived, as it was for the children of employees, but Erik dug his heels in, risked the Khans displeasure and said he wouldn't go. He didn't want to. School had been nothing other than a series of disasters, one right after the other. School wasn't for him.

It might be for Raoul, though. After work, Erik went to the local library and looked up all the information he could on Howard. It was seriously impressive, Raoul had to be super smart to get in. Probably too smart to work the night shift at the scrap yard, Erik admitted to himself. It was still a cool job, but not a job that required major brainwork. Raoul probably needed more brainwork and therapy required a lot a brainwork since the therapist had to use their _own_ brain to fix other people's brains.

Doubling down on his mission to Help Raoul Find A Career, Erik went into the health section of the library and picked out a few books that he thought looked interesting _The Human Zoo,_ _Left Brain, Right Brain_ , and _The Life of the Self._ Those all sounded like books that someone who fixed brains would want to read. Erik looked around to see if there were any books about psychology and sports, but he couldn't find any. That would have been perfect, playing to Raoul's strengths _and_ his interests.

There was one librarian at the circulation desk, though not a person he was familiar with. He'd been coming to the public library since forever and most of the staff knew him, so he felt pretty comfortable asking for help most of the time. Erik approached the desk with the three books he'd found on his own under his arm. The woman who was standing behind it seemed like a nice grandmotherly type, in a soft sweater with shoulder-length blondeish hair. He smiled, even though he knew she couldn't see and waited for her to say, 'Can I help you?'

She did not. She looked up, stared at him and her soft grandma-face hardened into a look of narrow-eyed suspicion. She didn't say anything.

Erik took a deep breath and took it upon himself to start the conversation. "Hi. Um. I was wondering. Do you have any books about sports and psychology? Like a therapist, but for athletes? Or maybe just an athletic therapist? That would be okay too."

Silence. She was staring at him, hands at her sides, then her eyes flickered just behind him and she took a step away from the desk.

"Um, you know what?" Erik said, placing the books down on the table. "Never mind. I'll just take these."

She didn't move and a second later, Erik realized why. Darrell the security guard was approaching at a quick walk. His brow was furrowed and his steps slowed when he saw Erik standing in front of the desk. "Everything okay?"

"Hi Darrell," Erik gave him a tiny wave, even though he'd already greeted him when he came in. Panic button. At least the lady had only buzzed security and not the actual police. That would have been awkward.

"Hey man," he said, smiling up at him, then cocking his head at the mute librarian. "Mrs. Hughes? Everything okay?"

The stony expression on her face deepened and she gestured to Erik with a curt movement of her hand. "Could you tell him to uncover his face, please? I believe we have a note in the policy manual about face coverings."

Darrell scratched the back of his neck, "Ah, that's...we make an exception for Erik, okay? He's got...a condition."

That explanation did _not_ satisfy Mrs. Hughes. "If he has a medical condition that severe, I don't think it's wise that he come in and risk spreading - "

"I'm not contagious," Erik launched into his usual spiel. "The mask is to protect me from other people's germs, not - "

"Erik's been coming here since he was this high," Darrell interrupted, indicating a spot just below his knees. "We all know him, it's fine. If you're not comfortable, I can get Ms. Baxter - "

"She's on her lunch break, you don't need to disturb her," Mrs. Hughes cut him off. "I'm willing to help the young man if he takes off that hood and that mask."

Darrell sighed and rolled eyes, shrugging helplessly up at Erik, "Your call, kiddo."

"It's a question of _policy,_ " Mrs. Hughes said forcefully. "If he wants to use our facilities, he has to abide by our rules. It isn't difficult to understand."

If the books were for him, Erik would have left them. Just said nevermind and come back when Mr. Capelli or Ms. Baxter were around; this was the first he'd heard about a no face coverings policy and he wondered what ladies who covered their faces because of religious reasons were supposed to do. But the books were for Raoul and Erik wasn't going to have time to come back later.

Taking another deep breath, Erik took the hoodie off and slipped the straps of the mask off his sad excuses for ears. Though really, once the ears were revealed, Mrs. Hughes seemed to realize that she'd made a mistake. Darrell looked away and she swallowed hard, hand going to her throat as he took the mask off, strings dangling limply from his hands.

The librarian turned away, eyes averted.

"Put it back on," she requested, holding her shaking hands for the books.

Erik complied. She did her best not to touch him as he handed over his library card and she stamped the due date into the back. Fortunately there wasn't anyone else at the desk to give him a hard time. He took the books without a word and made a beeline for the exit.

"You could have told me he was _deformed_ ," he heard Mrs. Hughes hiss as he made his way out the door. "That was humiliating!"

As he made his way quickly out the door, books hugged to his chest, Erik found himself in total agreement.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning for:** References to **depression, cutting, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation.**

Erik brought him books. Out of the blue. From the library. About psychology which Raoul might have suspected was a dig (like, a not so subtle hint to figure his life out) only Erik didn’t seem to be the underhanded type.

“I was at the library, I thought these might interest you,” Erik explained when he handed the books over to him. “They’re due in three weeks, but if you need them for longer just tell me and they can renew them at least once. Maybe twice, but I’m not sure about that.”

“Thanks,” Raoul said, flipping open the covers to read the synopses. The one about the zoo looked kind of interesting. Maybe he’d peruse them on nights when Erik couldn’t stop by. As it was, he’d only stayed on for an hour or so, did one walk-around with him and said he had to head back.

There was something off about his manner and demeanor, he didn’t talk nearly as much as usual and his voice and posture seemed subdued. Sluggish. Kind of sleepy and defeated which was not at all like him. Raoul wasn’t sure if it was related to their stilted conversation about Erik’s family last time and he didn’t know how to ask without seeming defensive. Like, ‘How dare you be sad about that time I kind of goaded you into talking about your shitty past?’ He didn’t want to come off that way, so he didn’t say anything and just let him leave.

That might have been a mistake, in retrospect. Erik didn’t come back for four days in a row and Raoul was starting to get worried about him. They’d never traded phone numbers and Raoul had only the vaguest idea of where he lived (in the nicer residential part of downtown, near the park, he said he walked there with Reza so the house couldn’t be too far). It wasn’t like he could look in on him, tap on the door and make inquiries.

He did read the books, though (well, skimmed them). And the sight of Raoul reading _Left Brain, Right Brain_ over a glass of OJ and a plate of toast prompted Dad to pause on his way in to work and ask, “Are you taking a class?”

It was the first time he’d asked Raoul a direct question about something unrelated to the scrap yard or house chores in months. He was so taken aback that Raoul started to reply, “I’ll get to that - ” before he realized that this stock answer didn’t fit this situation.

Raoul cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter at the kitchen table. “No, just...reading up on some stuff. A...uh...friend got these for me from the library. I took one psych class in high school, but this is more case studies and less...um, vocab.”

“Hmm,” Dad nodded. “Alright. Keep it up.”

“Yessir,” Raoul replied, heart beating a little faster in his chest. Approval. Honest-to-God approval. It had been so long he completely forgot what it felt like. He’d have to tell Erik that…

Some of the elation faded when he remembered that there weren’t any guarantees that Erik would show up that night. Or any night soon.

Maybe he was in the phone book. Even as Raoul hefted the yellow pages out of their home on the rickety shelf under the kitchen phone he knew he was being a little too optimistic. There were a bunch of Cohens listed, including an ‘Eric’ Cohen, but given how specific he was about the spelling of his name, Raoul didn’t even try dialing the number, sure it was the wrong guy.

Maybe he was busy with work, he thought after the fifth night that Erik was a no-show. Though Erik hadn’t mentioned the record store by name, he’d referred to its relative location enough that Raoul was pretty sure he knew where it was - sharing a wall with an Italian bakery, on the corner of a main road close to grad student housing for one of the colleges.

After his post-work sleep, Raoul got dressed and headed out that way, grabbing lunch from a sandwich place as he did, really missing Erik’s midnight leftovers. Roast beef just didn’t have the same appeal - not even with extra horseradish.

Raoul quickly checked his appearance in the dark glossy windows of the record store and once he was satisfied that he was crumb and sauce-free he went inside where a little tinkling bell announced his arrival.

A burly white dude with a thick blonde beard and a nametag which read ‘Joey’ looked up when he came in and grinned like they were old friends. “My man!” he exclaimed, gesturing to a rack that proclaimed, ‘NEW RELEASES HOT HOT HOT!!!’ surrounded by illustrations of chili peppers. “I got your Ice-T! Your Grandmaster Flash, your - ”

“Uh, I’m not looking to buy anything,” Raoul interrupted him, holding his hands up to slow the guy’s sales pitch. “Um. I’m actually...does Erik, uh, Cohen work here?”

Joey narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side. “Why? That guy owe you money?”

“Uh…”

“I’m kidding!” he said laughing as Raoul stared at him, not sure what he was supposed to say to that. “Kidding. Yeah, he does, but he’s out sick today. Must have it bad too, didn’t even come in to pick up his check.”

Now, it must be noted that Raoul Chagny was not, in general, a liar. He didn’t even have that great an imagination. Might have been the psych books, bulking up his brain, but the story slipped out, calmly and naturally as could be before he even realized he’d thought to concoct it.

“That’s why I came,” Raoul said, smiling at Joey as charmingly as he could manage. “He’s a friend of mine, asked if I could pick up his check. Only thing is, he didn’t give me his address. Do you have it?”

“I must,” Joey said, holding up a finger to indicate that he’d be back in a minute. Someone did emerge from a back room a minute later, but it wasn’t Joey. Instead it was an older guy, maybe in his thirties, with a long black beard and a shaved head. Instinctively, Raoul shifted so that he had a straight shot out the door; the guy was _huge_ , six-six, easy, and _big_ , like, linebacker big.

“You’re bringing Erik his check?” he asked in a voice like rocks in a blender.

Raoul swallowed nervously, wiping suddenly sweaty hands on his jeans. It was the Coast Guard all over again, the room suddenly seemed incredibly small with this giant taking up half the floorspace and most of the air. “Um. Yeah. If that’s okay.”

“You’re taking him his check, but you don’t know where he lives?” the giant - Ronny, according to his name tag - asked. Reasonably. He was scary looking, but he was reasonable.

“I know about where he lives,” Raoul replied, which wasn’t a lie, not _really_ , but neither was it exactly true. “I just don’t have the exact house number. I’d...rather not knock on all the neighbors’ doors trying to find him.”

Ronny looked him up and down. Raoul had no idea what he was expecting to find, but his bushy black eyebrows cleared and he asked, less suspiciously. “Are you Scrap Yard Raoul?”

Scrap Yard Raoul. He didn’t think he was particularly fond of that nickname, but that wasn’t a thought he was going to share with Ronny.

“Yes,” he said instead. “Scrap Yard Raoul. That’s me.”

“Alright,” Ronny said, producing a folded white envelope from the depths of one of his meaty hands. “There you go. Tell Erik to take his time and get better. Can’t be easy, coming down with a cold like that.”

 _What’s the big deal about a cold?_ Raoul thought, but figured voicing the question aloud would just make him look suspicious again. He nodded and said he’d pass the word along. Just then Joey poked his head out of the back room.

“Sure you don’t want anything? If rap’s not your style I’ve got MJ’s latest - 18 greatest hits, some from his Jackson 5 days!”

“I’m cool,” Raoul said, backing up toward the door. “Maybe some other time.”

“Always happy to get some music for the brothers!” were Joey’s parting words as Raoul shut the door behind him. Next time Erik came by the scrap yard they were having serious talk about his coworker’s sales pitch.

The address was on a street about half a mile closer to the colleges, in an area populated by young professionals with small families. No big yards, but nice brownstones, good neighborhood. Raoul had some friends from high school whose families lived around here, so he was familiar with the area. It being the middle of the day there was plenty of parking and he found a spot right in front of Erik’s building.

He rang the bell, hanging by on the stoop waiting for Erik to come to the door. The door was opened, but not by Erik. It took Raoul a second for his brain to compute exactly _why_ the mustachioed Persian guy wearing a ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron looked so familiar. It was a context thing, he was more used to seeing the man in short-sleeved button-downs and khaki pants, standing in front of the blackboard, trying in vain to teach him how to balance equations.

“Can I help - _Raoul?_ ” Mr. Khan asked, looking as shocked and horrified to see Raoul out of context as Raoul was to see him. “What are you...how did you...how are you?”

“Good,” Raoul replied automatically. “Uh. Sorry. I must have the wrong...um. I was looking for a guy who lives near here, a friend of mine, I don’t know if you know him, um. He’s really, really tall and skinny, uh...usually wears a mask, like a hospital one and a black sweatshirt - I mean, probably more than one sweatshirt, I’m sure he owns more than one sweatshirt, but they’re all black.”

Raoul shut his mouth and stopped babbling; evidently his brain decided the best way to _find_ Erik, was to _talk_ like Erik.

“Erik,” Mr. Khan clarified, speaking slowly, glancing over his shoulder behind him. “Ah. I...know him, yeah.”

Raoul nodded. Mr. Khan nodded. And belatedly, Raoul realized it was his turn to talk.

“Uh, I have his check,” Raoul said, producing the envelope, slightly damp on the edges from the sweat on his palms. “I don’t know if you want to put it through his mail slot or…”

He trailed off and Mr. Khan took the initiative, plucking the check from Raoul’s sweaty hand and tucking it in the pocket of his apron. “I’ll see that he gets it. Thoughtful of you to bring it by.”

“Oh, that was a...yeah, no problem,” Raoul replied, feeling like Mr. Khan didn’t really care to hear the story of his day (frankly, might think he was a stalker if he found out that he’d basically been ghosting Erik around the city out of loneliness). “I heard he was sick, so...if you see him, tell him I hope he feels better soon.”

Mr. Khan’s face crumpled. There was no other way to describe the expression, like his face was made of glass and someone shattered it. Just for a second, then the lines in his face smoothed out and he resumed his posture of slightly impatient curiosity, but the effect was alarming regardless.

“Yeah,” he said, voice a little hoarse. He cleared his throat and repeated himself. “Yeah. I’ll tell him. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Raoul said, ambling backwards off the stoop, stumbling a little on the last step. When he righted himself the door was shut and Mr. Khan was gone.

* * *

 

If it had just been the uncomfortable interaction at the library, Erik could have rallied. Brushed it off and chalked it up to just another wrinkle in the fabric of his life, another complication of being him.

The art of being Erik was something Erik had, if not perfected, worked on coming to terms with ever since he was old enough to know there was something wrong with him...a _lot_ of things wrong with him. It seemed he'd always known, but there must have been a time when he didn't. Maybe when he was a baby, both too young understand that people were recoiling from him and too young to understand why.

Some days were worse than others and, honestly, Mrs. Hughes and her policy enforcement were far from the worst things he'd ever dealt with. If nothing else followed, he could have basically forgotten the whole thing after a few days.

But then he made the mistake of calling his mom. A painful, three minute conversation where she made it very clear that it was not a good time. That she had nothing to say to him. And that he needed to wrap up whatever it was he had to say to her quickly so she could get dinner on the table for her new family.

Her do-over family. A husband he'd met once, briefly, before she moved two time zones away. Two new, perfect kids. The life that she wanted, the life that had been put on hold - taken from her, really - by him.

Dr. K didn't even pretend she wasn't listening when he called. After he hung up the phone she half got up from the chair, one hand out like she was going to give him a hug or something, but Erik edged away from her, said if it was all the same, he might skip dinner, he just wanted to lie down. So as not to be a bother, he didn't lie down on the living room couch, but instead went into the bedroom where he kept his clothes and instruments, curled up in a ball on the too-short twin bed. And stayed there for three days.

Not _continuously_. Not like he wore a hole in the mattress by parking his bony ass down and not moving. No, he got up. Very occasionally. To use the bathroom. To force down a handful of cereal and a cup of milk. Then back to the bed for intermittent sleep and a lot of abusive introspection.

_You're a burden, no one loves you, no one has ever loved you, no one will ever love you, you're unwanted, unlovable, disgusting, horrible, just disappear. Everyone would be happier, better off if you just disappeared._

He'd tried to make himself disappear, at various times over the years. It was after the last time that he'd come to stay with the Khans. When it was clear that there was truly no one else who cared enough to try to keep him alive. The scars were there, a grisly reminder up and down his arms about just how close he'd come to ending it all.

Most days he looked at them with a pang of something like embarrassment as he rolled his shirtsleeves down and reminded himself that it wasn't _that_ bad. He covered them up and shied away from the memories, a little scared of himself, the Erik that he’d been a year ago. He’d heard it said that as a defense mechanism the human body did not have an ability to clearly remember the sensation of physical pain and it was true that while he remembered _being_ in pain after his surgeries, he couldn’t recall the prick or the burn or the ache itself. Erik found emotional pain was similar. On good days it was hard to imagine, that he'd felt _that_ terrible, _that_ hopeless.

Then there were days like this when he considered that he hadn't gone far enough last time. That maybe, he should reopen a few of the old wounds. That no one would care.

Certainly not his folks. Not the father who, when the hospital got a hold of him, scoffed and said that obviously it wasn't serious if Erik was still alive. Not the mother who sighed at the social worker over the phone and said, no, she couldn't come get him. He certainly couldn't live with her. She had another family. Children who needed her. A husband who wouldn't approve.

If the feelings dredged up felt scarily similar to those he’d experienced a year ago, there was one major difference: his despair kept getting interrupted.

Dr. K came in every morning before she left for work and deposited a smoothie on his bedside table. Then she called on her morning break (letting the phone ring and ring until he got up and answered it), to ask if he’d finished it. She called again on her lunch break, kept him on the phone for fifteen minutes with idle office gossip, just to hear him breathing on other end of the line. To urge him to drink a glass of water. To eat lunch. Just a little something. Even if he wasn’t hungry.

Mr. K refused detention shift and came home early every day, sat on his bed, asked if he wanted to talk. Erik shook his head and Mr. K nodded, then ruffled his hair and said he was around if Erik changed his mind.

Jasmine made him a card when she was told by her parents that Erik wasn't feeling well and that was why he was in bed. Reza climbed up beside him and took a nap with him while Erik feigned sleep.

It was hard to believe his messed up brain under those conditions. To fall into the sinkhole of abject misery when they were people shining a light on him and offering a ladder to climb out. He wasn’t kidding when he told Raoul he owed them a billion favors. Erik would spend the rest of his life trying to repay their kindness. If reincarnation was real, he’d probably be paying back the Khans into the next life as well.

It was after Erik finally felt well enough to haul himself into the bathroom and shower that he found Mr. K sitting on the edge of his bed, sheets stripped and balled up, ready for the laundry.

“I’ve got your check,” he said, waving a slightly battered envelope around like a flag. “Let’s get in the car and deposit it, okay?”

“Okay,” Erik said. “Can we go to the drive-thru?”

Mr. K nodded. “If we hustle, yeah, we can do that.”

Banks were the only place where Erik couldn’t get away with wearing the mask. Masks tended to equate to robberies, even flimsy paper ones that didn’t cover his whole face. Much better to go through the drive-thru where the teller couldn’t see him and for a few minutes he could enjoy a lovely fantasy world where he was just like everybody else.

“How about a driving lesson?” Mr. K asked as Erik adjusted the passenger seat back to accommodate his stupidly long legs. “After? We can go to the parking lot of my school, no games on the schedule, it should be pretty empty.”

“O...kay,” Erik said. Mr. K had been on his case about getting a license even though Erik insisted that he didn’t need one, that he could walk or take the bus anywhere he needed to go. The lessons themselves were fine, it was the thought of suffering through tests and photos at the DMV that set him on edge. But Mr. K wasn’t asking him to sign up for Driver’s Ed, just to drive slowly around in a parking lot and work on parallel parking.

As they approached the bank, Erik looked down at the check with a frown. “Who brought it? Ronny? I feel like Joey would just flake, but - ”

“Your friend Raoul,” Mr. K informed him, making Erik double-take beside him. “I don’t know how he got a hold of it, but he came around yesterday. Nice of him. He said he hoped you felt better soon.”

Erik sat back against the seat, a little overwhelmed. It was the first time anyone - other than the Khans - had shown him that kind of consideration in a _long_ time. It didn’t occur to him to wonder how Raoul got the check, how he’d even found out where Erik lived, it was the concept of Raoul being his _friend_ that stuck out more than anything.

‘Your Friend Raoul,’ Mr. K said. Had Raoul described himself that way? Like, had he said, ‘Hi, I’m Raoul I have a check for my friend Erik.’ Or was it an inference? As in, there was no way Raoul would go out of his way for a mere acquaintance.  
_Your friend Raoul._ It had to have been the stress of the last few days, but Erik could feel his eyes start to well up and he forcibly blinked to keep the tears from falling, tilting his head back before his sinuses could clog. More than the embarrassment of falling to pieces in Mr. K’s car was the fact that it was actively gross when he cried.

_Your friend Raoul._

Wow.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning for:** References to **cutting.**

Exactly a week after Erik dropped off the books he came back. Raoul was happy to see him, of course, but more than that he was relieved; something about the way Ronny talked about his being sick and Mr. Khan looked so devastated when Raoul left the check with him made him feel worried for the guy, far more than the situation seemed to call for. 

Yet Erik seemed healthy enough when he appeared in front of the office door, having scaled the fence, "Habit," he shrugged, ruefully self-conscious as Raoul looked him over critically. Beanpole-skinny, pale as paper on the few patches of visible skin that were exposed, but that was Erik-normal. 

"How are - " Raoul began, but before he could finish Erik interrupted him with a rush of words in his usual, manic way. Erik-normal.

"Did you read the books? Did you like them? Were you, perhaps, inspired to strike up a keen study of psychology?"

Raoul replied, more slowly and deliberately that he had read (okay, skimmed) the books, liked them okay, as much as anyone could truly _like_ academic-focused works of non-fiction. As for 'inspired...'

"I liked them okay," Raoul reiterated. "But, I mean...there were three of them, you know, so I'm good for now. Like, next time I tackle a stack of books I might go for something less brainy."

"Oh," Erik looked a little defeated and Raoul wondered what he'd done wrong, but he quickly recovered, nodding to himself as if hearing a conversation somewhere nearby that Raoul wasn't privy to. "That's okay! Better luck next time. Is it time for rounds or have you done them already?"

"We could take a walk," Raoul said, getting up from his chair - the stationary armchair in front of where the register sat during open hours. The swivel chair was Erik's chair. Erik hadn't made a move to sit since he'd arrived; whatever was ailing him it was clear it had passed since his boundless energy was back in spades. 

They'd acquired a few big new pieces that Erik oohed and aahed over. A stained glass window from a demolished church caught his eye in particular. He ran his fingers over the panes, lightly tapping on the trapped bubbles inside as if trying to coax them to pop. 

"This is so gorgeous," Erik said, getting really invested in a bunch of diamond panes of colored glass. Raoul squinted at it, trying to see what Erik saw, but all he could muster up was a vague notion that the window needed a good scrubbing; the interior was sooty and darkened from years of incense and candle smoke. "Like, just think about the people who invested money and effort building a church and then...gone. They took a wrecking ball to it. A _wrecking_ ball. The Moral Majority tears their hair out over the state of the country and protests at abortion clinics, but when they've got a literal house of worship that's struggling, do they help out? Nope, they let the city take a wrecking ball to the church. Sticking their noses in other people's business while their god wanders around, homeless. Someone should write a poem about it. Not me, I suck at writing. But someone should."

"I don't know," Raoul said, shining his flashlight more closely at the glass, watching it cast colored shadows on the dusty ground. "That line about the homeless God was pretty good. Is your...ah. Were you raised religious?"

Erik stopped poking the window, but he didn't turn around to look at Raoul, "Not, like, _religious._ Not observant-observant. We kept kosher. I guess I still do, but that's sort of accidental. By-product of being vegetarian. Whatever. When I was little we had a membership at the synagogue, but the dues got too expensive. Sometimes we'd be able to get tickets for the High Holy Days, but usually we didn't bother. My grandma would do, like, a quick and dirty Shabbat dinner, but...um...I don't really 'do' religion. Except as like...an aesthetic thing. The aesthetics of religious institutions can be pretty incredible. The, ah, people...not so much. Sometimes. I'm sure there are exceptions, there usually are. How about you? Is your family observant?"

Observant? "We did church on Sundays, when my mom..."

It occurred to Raoul that this was the first time since he'd left school that he'd had a conversation about his mom with a non-family member. He just took it for granted that people would be able to _tell_ , just by looking at him, that he'd lost a parent. That they'd know through some kind of sadness-sensing psychic ability. Like he had 'I'm not okay' tattooed on his forehead or something. 

Raoul cleared his throat and tried to be nonchalant. "When my mom was alive. She passed...almost two years ago. We - my dad and I - haven't kept up with it since. I just sleep in most Sundays."

 _Most days,_ seemed an unnecessary addition. When you worked at night, you slept most days, that was just common sense. 

Erik turned to face him, cocking his head down. The shadows were too deep to see his eyes well, but Raoul imagined he was going for quiet sympathy. "I'm really sorry about your mom."

"Thanks," Raoul replied, stomach clenching a little since 'I'm sorry,' seemed so inappropriate to say (even though it was what people _did_ say, all the time, 'I'm sorry,' like they could have prevented it), and 'Thanks' even worse, ('I'm so grateful that you feel bad for me.') Conversations like this were why he'd lost touch with so many friends. Stilted, awkward, him feeling resentful that there wasn't a better vocab to discuss crap like this (as if words existed somewhere in English or any other human language that could accurately describe grief), them wanting to do the right thing, but so afraid of saying the wrong thing that they clammed up. Worried that it was inappropriate to be happy if he was sad. Him wanting things to feel normal, alternating between wishing the tension would just lift, then feeling offended and hurt when conversation did flow smoothly, when people did joke and laugh, wishing everyone could just feel as bad as him. Then recoiling in horror from the idea that, if everyone in the world was grieving at the same time, there'd be nowhere to go to escape the noise. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Erik asked, idly rolling up his sleeves (it was getting warm outside, Raoul kind of marveled that he'd come in wearing the hoodie at all). "Or we could never mention it again. Or compromise, like, we don't have to talk now, but the conversational door can just be open in perpetuity if you ever want to walk through it." 

Without meaning to, Raoul smiled, the first time he'd _ever_ done so when it came to discussing his mom. His sisters, he knew, had gotten to the point where they could smile about it. Laugh and tell stories, feel better for remembering her aloud, with others. Raoul wasn't there yet. When they talked about her, he had to leave the room. And it wasn't even the thought of discussing his mom that made him smile, just the...sweetness of Erik's offer. Not a normal way to refer to the disposition of another guy - sweet. A little too uncomfortably close to 'cute,' for Raoul's taste. But it was a sweet offer Erik made - thoughtful. Considerate. And it made him smile. 

"Not tonight," Raoul replied. "But...thanks for the offer. I'll remember that."

Erik's eyes crinkled and they walked on, stopping again when Erik saw an enormous bar that had been pulled out of a house in the neighborhood that was doubtlessly very glamorous in the '50s and painfully outdated now. 

"Oh, this is _great!_ " Erik exclaimed, climbing around some heaped old school desks, iron and wood, to take his place behind the bar. "I feel like I'm in _The Shining_ , but like, the tacky _Shining._ Instead of being the caretaker of a creepy old hotel, you're the caretaker of foreclosed house. And the ghosts are, like, boozing housewives and their husbands who are constantly going out the door to and from...um. Golf. Yeah, probably golf."

"Probably golf," Raoul echoed. Philippe was a member of a golf club, he kept trying to get Raoul to come with him, but Raoul kept putting him off. The tee times were ridiculously early for one and for another...golf kind of felt like an old person thing. Phil, pushing forty, was definitely settling into comfortable middle age. Raoul, at almost half that, was not. 

There was also the other issue of, when their dad applied for membership twenty years prior, he was denied. It was never explicitly said to be a race thing, but Raoul had a sneaking suspicion that it was. Dad had never taken Phil up on his invites either and Raoul felt a strange solidarity in following along with that. Dad didn't know, of course, that Raoul kept blowing Phil off, or his reasons for doing so. He'd probably scoff and say that hiding in the house all day wasn't doing _him_ any favors, if Raoul didn't want to go golfing, that was his business. It had nothing to do with him.

Apparently Erik had been waxing poetic about the bar at length and paused, clearly waiting for Raoul to reply to either a statement he'd made or a question he'd asked. Raoul had no idea which since he was not listening.

"Sorry, zoned out," he apologized. "What?"

"Never mind," Erik said, brushing off the unintentional slight. "Not important. Just words. Not that words aren't important, words are very important in general, but in particular in this case they were not. I like the look of this bar. I hope it finds a good home."

"Maybe just not one with ghosts?" Raoul ventured, with another smile.

"Ghosts give a place character," Erik replied matter-of-factly. "Maybe this bar is haunted - I've read that objects can be haunted, just like locations. I mean, if you believe in ghosts and believe that hauntings are even actually things that really happen and not just the results of bad wiring and natural cold spots. Anyway, wouldn't it suck, to have a haunted object in your house? It could potentially be really tiny too, like, you could have an exorcism or something or move and it turns out the whole time it was a ghost of an angry secretary whose soul was trapped in a paperclip or something."

That made Raoul laugh out loud, prompting Erik to laugh in return. As the two of them walked back to the office, Raoul remarked. "Where do you come up with this stuff? You should release a spoken-word album, some of the things you say are priceless."

"Heh, thanks," Erik said in a bashful way, hand coming up to cup the back of his head. As Raoul turned the light on, his smile faded when he saw the inside of Erik's right arm - crisscrossed with scars, some fairly deep. Immediately he averted his gaze, a hot tingle running down his spine, the same sensation of mortification that came when he accidentally walked in on someone using the bathroom. The sense that, through no fault of his own, he'd stumbled upon something really private.

Erik noticed, of course, and he belatedly rolled down the sleeves of his sweatshirt, the fingers of his left hand wrapped around the cuff on his right wrist as though preventing it from snapping back up like a window shade. "Sorry," he mumbled, edging back toward the door like he was going to take off right then. 

"It's..." Raoul trailed off, 'fine' seeming about as appropriate to say about Erik's arms as 'Thanks' was to his offer of condolences. Maybe he had done a little healing in the last year and a half. Back when he was at school, Raoul shied away from any discussion of another person's pain and problems, so wrapped up in his own hurt that it didn't occur to him that anyone else _could_ be going through something difficult. Not as difficult as what _he_ experienced. Now though he had enough emotion in him for sympathy. 

Swallowing he looked up and met Erik's funky colored eyes. "Uh. Like you said earlier. If you want to talk or don't or do eventually...door's open. Whenever you want."

Erik's eyes got pretty big and the shifting of the mask indicated that he'd dropped his mouth open in shock. As readily as he'd offered a listening ear to Raoul, he seemed surprised to have the same offer made available to him. 

"Wow," he said, softly, to himself. Then more loudly. "Thanks. Thanks very much, that's...really...um...can I ask you something that might sound...childish or...just...I was wondering...after you brought me my check - which I very much appreciate! Thank you! I meant to thank you before but I forgot! I actually also meant to ask you how you got it, but that's not the question I want to ask right now - "

He was getting a little worked up, so Raoul reached out and put a hand on his arm, just for a second, to bring him back to the here and now. "Ask whatever you want, we've got time."

Erik took a breath, dropped his eyes to the floor and asked quietly, like a little kid might ask for a present they knew they weren't going to get, "Are we friends? Like, do you consider me your...friend? Not just...um. A nuisance? That you put up with because you're a nice person."

It wouldn't be accurate to say that Raoul's heart melted - that sounded horrifying, actually - but it might have gone a little gooey around the edges. And yeah, an adult dude asking another adult dude if they were friends was a little...much. The word 'gay' came up again, but Raoul wouldn't chastise Erik for his question. He'd told him to ask it, after all. And there was a kind of bravery in being that vulnerable, he thought. Yeah. Kind of brave.

"I'm...really not as nice as you think I am," Raoul replied, once he'd gathered his thoughts. "But you're - yeah. You're my friend. Am I...your friend? And not just the lonely guy at the junk yard you hang around with because _you're_ nice."

"I do try to be nice," Erik replied seriously. "It's part of my life philosophy. But you're most definitely my friend. Like, absolutely, unequivocally, _yes._ "

"Good," Raoul said, dropping into his chair, nudging Erik's chair toward him with his toe, grateful when Erik sat down and started doing his spinning thing. There was an easy companionship with him, despite how honestly weird he was (Erik-normal, rather). A comfort in being with another person and talking to another person that he hadn't felt since he was little. Not since he'd been friends - honestly friends, _best_ friends - with Christine. 

Raoul glanced at Erik out of the corner of his eye. Maybe...well, why not? He was an unbiased third party. Maybe he could see the situation clearly. At least give him some words of wisdom since Raoul was in danger of turning into the 'Call is coming from inside the house' guy from that babysitting movie.

"Can I ask you some advice?"

Erik laughed again. "Literally no one has ever asked me for advice ever, but I can try."

"Okay, well there's this girl - "

"I can already tell I'm tremendously unqualified."

"No, it's not...just listen. There's this girl, Christy - Christine. And I kind of...wrecked our friendship. Uh. Not...I mean, I didn't do anything really bad, just kind of...um. Okay, let me start over. We were really close in elementary school, but in junior high..."


	8. Chapter 8

"Ohmygodyouneedtocallherrightnowimmediately."

That was Erik's takeaway after hearing Raoul's tale of woe and teen angst. It was _tragic_ in the way that high school drama was tragic and as a lapsed high schooler himself, Erik lapped it all up with wide eyes, listening closely with his hands on fists, resting on his knees. Two best friends, both alike in dignity, in fair Philly where we lay our scene, torn apart by circumstance, peer groups, and one night of irresponsibility on Raoul's part. 

That didn't mean Raoul wasn't a nice guy, though. Erik thought it proved he was a nice guy - the fact that he wanted to reconcile, but was so full of crippling self-doubt that he had a hard time even picking up the phone. _There_ Erik could help him. 

This could be Raoul's One Nice Thing. Not just like, a nice thing, like holding the door for a lady wrestling with shopping bags and a baby stroller or giving up your seat on the bus to a person with a cane. Nope, that was just run of the mill, every day nice. Nope, this was potentially Nice with a capital N. Life-changing Nice.

Granted, that might be wishful thinking. She might not be home. Or she might be home and they might have a thirty second horribly stilted conversation that ended quickly as they realized that they didn't have anything bonding them together other than the fact that they'd lived on the same block for fifteen years. But still. It _might_ be life-changing.

 _Want me to call her for you?_ and _Would you like to live with us?_ Had the same number of syllables, even. It had to be a sign.

"Want me to call her for you?" Erik asked, holding out his hands for the phone and Raoul's slip of paper. "I won't feel compelled to hang up when she says 'hi', so there's a plus right there."

Raoul looked a little overwhelmed, like he'd run a marathon or something. And he kind of had. A vocal marathon. Usually Raoul didn't have much to say, he rarely monologued. It must have taken a lot of energy to maintain, so Erik sat there, patiently, but eagerly, waiting for Raoul to let him do something Nice for him. 

"I don't know," he said finally, one hand drifting to his pocket and pulling out the worn and tattered piece of paper with her number on it. It looked like glorified lint. "I don't want to call her at ten at night, she might be out or sleeping or studying..."

"But you're approaching the end of the paper's natural life-cycle. Your window of opportunity is closing...or disintegrating," Erik rightly pointed out. "If not now, when?"

Raoul looked like he was going to say no. He even started to shake his head, as if all his instincts were telling him to just let it go. But then he said, "I'd have asked you to bring beer if I'd have known we were going to do this."

"I live in a dry household," Erik replied apologetically (though he was absolutely sure he could procure beer somewhere, if Raoul really needed it, but he'd hold off on that unless Christine _didn't_ pick up the phone or worse). Raoul nudged the office phone in Erik's direction and Erik picked it up, holding the receiver slightly away from his mouth so the mouthpiece didn't scrape against his mask and sound staticy. Christine might hang up if she thought they had a bad connection. "What's the number?"

Raoul didn't even look down at the paper as he recited it to him, jiggling one leg up and down in nervousness. Erik wasn't nervous. He was doing a Nice Thing, nervousness didn't factor in. 

The phone rang exactly once before a perky voice with a heavy drawl piped up, high and energetic, "Heeeey! Where are y'all, we've been waiting on you a half hour already!"

"Um." One thing Erik hadn't accounted for was calling and being mistaken for someone else before he'd even said a word. "Hi. Is, uh, Christine there?"

He had to assume the girl who picked up the phone wasn't Christine - unless she'd developed a really intense accent while she was away at college.

"One sec!" NotChristine replied chirpily. She angled her head away from the phone, but shouted, so Raoul and Erik could hear her anyway, "Christy-bean, there's a fella on the phone for you! AND HE SOUNDS SEXY AS ALL GET-OUT!"

Erik blushed _hot_ under the mask and silently handed the phone to Raoul. There was some giggling a faint, 'Did you ask who it was?' followed by a louder, 'I don't know, I don't keep track of all your boyfriends!' and a mortified, 'God, Meghan!' before Christine herself picked up and asked, "Hello?"

Raoul cleared his throat and looked at Erik as though he'd forgotten how to use a phone, but recovered ably and said (in a very normal tone of voice under the circumstances), "Christy. Christine. Hi. It's. Um. Me. I mean, Raoul. Remember? From...school. How are you?"

There was a pause and Erik's heart dropped. The pause could mean anything, from 'Ack, who is this Raoul person?' to 'Oh shit, it's Raoul, I hate him!' to 'Wow, I wasn't expecting Raoul to call me!' The mask prevented him from biting his nails, but he was _tempted._

Fortunately it turned out to be the latter kind of pause.

"Raoul? Oh my God! It's been forever! I'm good, how are you? My dad told me your mom passed, I'm so sorry."

Christine's voice was neither as high-pitched nor as Southern as her friend's, but Erik could hear her through the receiver. He watched Raoul's face closely: he was smiling vaguely and both his eyebrows were raised, like he couldn't quite believe they were talking. From Erik's perspective, it was like watching a movie and he sat with rapt attention, not even considering the fact that he was essentially eavesdropping. He'd started the phone call after all, so he was basically part of the conversation. 

"Um. Yeah, thanks. I'm good. I guess. Coping...um. Fine. Uh. How are you?"

Raoul had already asked her that, but Christine didn't seem to notice. 

"I'm good! Getting geared up for finals! I'm student teaching this semester, I've got a class of thirteen I'm shadowing and they're _so_ sweet. The school is thinking of mainstreaming their chorus - special ed and regular ed kids together - and I'm helping with the transition. They assigned me here because they thought I'd be a good fit and I _love_ it, I never want to leave! I'll be so depressed in May. Are you graduating this semester?"

"Uh..." Raoul paused and looked embarrassed so Erik grabbed a legal pad and a pen, scrawling 'LEAVE OF ABSENCE!' in his chicken-scratch penmanship. Raoul squinted at it and said, "No, I'm...taking some time off. I never really figured out what I wanted to do with my major and...oh! I'm taking a leave of absence. My dad started a new business, so I'm mostly helping him."

"Wow! I thought your dad would have retired by now, but that's really exciting. What kind of business? Something boring? You know I _never_ really understood what he did anyway."

"It's a...demolition recovery depot," Raoul said, glancing over at Erik as if he should have another prepared statement for him to fall back on. Erik got to scribbling again and wrote 'ANTIQUE BUILDINGS!' 'RECYCLE!' and 'REPURPOSE' even drawing a crude approximation of the arrow triangle symbol for recycling. Clearing his throat Raoul squinted again and said, "We...um...repurpose and recycle debris from...historical buildings. Uh. Like...stained glass windows from churches and wrought iron desks from schools. There's. Ah. Artistic interest in...'

'REINTERPRETING!' 'REINVIGORATING!' 'REHOMING' (Erik was kind of stuck on a re-kick.)

"...reinvigorating materials that might...uh, just be thrown away otherwise," Raoul explained. "Um. We've got a tub that might have belonged to a Vanderbilt. Either that or Winston Churchill's mom. We're...looking into that."

"That sounds so cool!" Christine exclaimed and Raoul moved the phone slightly away from his mouth to exhale a sigh of relief. There was some background noise on the other line and Christine's voice faded out slightly as she called to whoever was in the room with her, "Just a minute! He's a friend from home, we haven't talked in forever! Yeah, yeah, just...I'll meet you downstairs, okay? Raoul?"

"Yeah?" he asked, switching the phone to his other hand and wiping his palms on his slacks.

"I'm going out for my friend's 21st, but listen, can you give me your number? I'd love to talk to you more - oh! Unless you're still living with your dad? I still have your parents' number in my address book."

The conversation was flowing so easily that the pause was jarring. Raoul did not give her his home number - he seemed to consider the matter for a while and Erik nervously wondered whether or not it was because of _him._ Like, that Raoul didn't want to risk Erik overstepping now that they'd made the whole Friendship thing official.

"Let me give you my number," Raoul said, rattling off the number of the scrap yard. "I'm usually around after seven, but...uh, I wouldn't call during the day if I was you. I don't have an answering machine. Um. Have fun tonight."

"You too! God, it's so good to hear from you. I'll call you soon - tomorrow if I can, but definitely by Sunday! Take care! You have a good night!"

"You too," he said. Raoul held onto the phone for a _long _time after the line went quiet. It was only once the phone started making the annoying beeping 'Your call has been disconnected, hang up now' noise that he placed it gently back on the receiver.__

__"You did it!" Erik enthused, just barely retraining himself from clapping because that was something he would do with Reza, but seemed inappropriate to try with an adult. "That was so awesome! See? She totally wanted to talk to you!"_ _

__"Yeah," Raoul said, sighing another relieved sigh. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. "That was...just not as intense as I thought it would be. Thanks for, uh, calling. And all the 'r' words, that was helpful."_ _

__"No problem," Erik replied sincerely. Then he added, "It's...um. If you don't want me to know your number, I just want you to know I wouldn't be calling you all the time. I'm not that kind of friend I don't think."_ _

__Raoul seemed surprised. "What? Oh, no, that had nothing to do with you. I just didn't...I didn't want her to know I live at home, that's all. It's one thing to be working for my dad, but...living with him and all just makes me look like a loser. Or she'll think I'm a loser. Or...whatever. I just don't want her to start off the conversation like, 'Oh, poor Raoul, he can't get his life together.'"_ _

__Given how pleased and relieved Raoul had seemed just seconds ago, it was extremely distressing to watch him fall back into self-loathing so quickly. His shoulders slumped and he slouched down in the chair like all the air had been let out of him. Not as Life-changing as Erik expected, but he couldn't allow himself to be disappointed. Maybe this was a one step forward, two steps back thing._ _

__"You are glad you called, right?" Erik asked, wanting to be reassured that he encouraged Raoul to do something that would make him feel good._ _

__"Oh, yeah, sure," Raoul nodded. "It was...really, really, good to hear her voice. Christy's just...this is going to sound so ga - um. This is going to sound so...hippie-ish, but she's got good energy. She's really easy to be around, to talk to. Or at least she was, when we were friends. It was nice to talk to her. Now let's just see if she calls me back."_ _

__He grinned up at Erik, but it seemed a little raggedy around the edges. Like that tattered paper that still sat between them on the desk. A nearby church tolled the hour with eleven great big 'BONGS' of the bell._ _

__"Gotta go," Erik said, rising up from the chair. "Curfew. I'll bring snacks next time, no guarantees on the beer."_ _

__"Okay, I'll walk you out, do a round," Raoul said, getting up as well. Casually he added, "Bring something for yourself, okay? Or do you want me to bring something? I don't know what vegetarians eat other than, like a vegetable and dip platter which seems lame. What do you like?"_ _

__"You don't have to," Erik shook his head. "I always eat before I come, so I don't need anything."_ _

__"Well, _I_ eat before I come," Raoul acknowledged. "But food's food. You can...take the mask off, it's okay, really."_ _

__This should have been a way of keeping them square. Erik did something Nice for Raoul, so it stood to reason that Raoul would want to do something Nice for Erik. But making a phone call was one thing, anyone could do that. Erik made the offer knowing exactly how telephones worked, exactly what phone etiquette entailed. Raoul asking to eat with him certainly came from a good place, but...Raoul didn't really know what he was offering._ _

__Erik's left hand drifted up to the mask and he shook his head again. "No. Thanks. It'll make things weird. And different. And I don't like that. The concept of that, inviting... _that_. So thank you, but no."_ _

__"Come on," Raoul said, voice turning cajoling. "I'm sure it's not - "_ _

__"Remember," Erik put a hand on the back of his head and stared directly over Raoul's head to focus his eyes on the far wall (not a hard thing to do, since Erik was freakishly tall and Raoul was gifted in the face and body department, but not so much in height). "Just...a minute ago when you said you didn't want to start a whole...thing with Christine based on pity? This is kind of like that. So thanks and all. I know you're trying to be Nice. But no. Thank you. Again."_ _

__Erik wouldn't meet Raoul's gaze, so if his newly minted Friend was staring at him, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of what he looked like beyond the mask, Erik had no clue. Even if he was, it didn't matter. The hood was tight, the mask was looped around his super pathetic ears. Raoul had no idea. And Erik preferred to keep it that way._ _

__"Okay," Raoul said finally, flicking on his flashlight and leading the way to the gate. "But I owe you one. I'll make it up to you somehow. Promise."_ _


	9. Chapter 9

"Up on the scale, please, hon."

Erik stepped up, eyes focused on the floor. The tiny Guatemalan medical assistant went and got a stool so she could measure his height. Then she got down off the stool and grabbed some kind of extension to clip on the back of the height rod. 

"Straighten up, hon, head up, eyes forward - nice and straight please."

Erik complied just long enough for her to mutter, "Seventy-nine inches," before he slumped into his customary slouch. 

The assistant (whose name-tag read 'Maria') remained on the stool as she moved the little black square on the scale - first up, then down when it hit the side of the scale with a clatter. 

There was a definite frown in her voice when she muttered and wrote, "One-hundred and forty-five..."

If there was one thing Erik hate-hate- _hated_ it was doctors' appointments. It had been years since he'd needed another surgery, but he lived in dread during the weeks leading up to the appointment that they'd find something - either during the examination of the inside of his mouth where he'd had his palate surgery when he was eight months (so, like, you'd think it wouldn't still need monitoring) or that he'd need to have his ear reconstruction re-done _again_ for his ears to remain in proportion with the rest of his head.

But he passed his hearing test with flying colors, which was nice on the one hand, but meant that the insurance company would classify any further cosmetic surgery on his ears as an elective procedure that wouldn't be covered. Ditto the nose - looking like a freak was not enough for Blue Cross to chip in for a permanent prosthesis. Or even a pair of Groucho Marx glasses with a mustache. Even that might be an improvement; at least people would laugh when they saw him, rather than just look kind of sick. 

No surgery seemed to be on the docket for him, though. Once he was done being weighed and measured, the pediatrician came in, looked at his eyes, mouth, sinuses, ears, gave him a brief lecture about eating more since he was underweight for his height, mentioned something about setting him up with a nutritionist, said he was up-to-date with his shots, and then left to deal with another patient. As Erik put his clothes back on, he exhaled a relieved sigh; awkward and humiliating as always, but brief. Brief was good. 

Dr. K was waiting for him when he came out, car keys in hand. "Lollipop?" she asked, gesturing toward the clear glass case of sugar-free confections. Lime green was the only opinion left. 

"No thanks," Erik said, tightening the strings of his hoodie slightly as he did so; the medical assistant tossed the mask in the trash earlier, before Erik had the chance to stop her and he didn't like going out without it. He supposed he could have asked if they had any extras he could borrow - they were in a doctors' office, after all, they probably had masks - but he just didn't feel like bugging anyone about it.

Dr. K smiled up at him and said, "We'll look into getting you a big-people doctor, I think either Dr. Katz or Dr. Mainelli have openings - would you prefer seeing a man or a woman? Or does it matter."

Erik shrugged. "I don't care. Whoever will take me, I guess."

She nodded and inclined her head toward the door. Erik kept his eyes on the ground and tried not to look up or bump into anything. The waiting room was deserted; he had one of the last appointments of the day so that Dr. Khan could drive him home afterward. Though he'd been going to her practice since middle school, she'd never been his doctor. Probably for the best, the courtts likely wouldn't have let her and Mr. K foster him if he was her patient. That probably crossed some kind of privacy line, though Erik wasn't sure who would have taken him if _not_ a doctor. Most laypeople would have been a little freaked out by his face and his extensive backlog of medical issues. 

Honestly, when he thought about it, Erik was a little freaked out by his extensive backlog of medical issues - and the fear of future medical issues. Who knew what other things might be lurking in his DNA just waiting to spring up and cause him additional problems? 

They took the staff elevator out to the parking garage and Erik took his place in the passenger seat of Dr. K's car - his least favorite Khan car. Even with the seat all the way back, his knees were still pressed up against the dash. Stupid legs. Stupid body that couldn't just be _normal._

"You're quiet," Dr. K observed as she maneuvered the car out of the parking garage and onto the streets. "You want something? To eat I mean?"

"No thanks," Erik said, neck bending, chin almost tucked against his chest. It was a bright sunny day and there were cyclists coming down the street beside them; he'd hate to look out the window and scare them and send them head over handlebars. "I'm not hungry."

"Okay," she said softly, reaching out with one hand and squeezing his bony left knee. "We can get a veggie pizza tonight, if you want. I know you like the Greek place and I think they deliver."

"Okay," Erik replied, kind of wishing she wouldn't touch him, but grateful to know she cared. It was nice - little n nice - for her to offer to get a dinner she knew he'd like. Or maybe she just talk to his doctor about the whole underweight thing. Either way, it was thoughtful. 

_**If he doesn't want to eat, I'm not going to force him! Let him go to bed hungry!** _

"Going out tonight?" she asked conversationally when they were stopped at a red light. "To see your friend, Raoul, maybe?"

"Maybe," Erik replied softly. He had been by the scrap yard a few times, but he didn't stay long. Christine had taken to calling Raoul pretty regularly and he didn't want to intrude on their phone calls or make Raoul hang up early to avoid being rude to him. Anyway, Raoul kept insisting that they eat together and Erik couldn't seem to convince him of what a deeply bad idea that was. 

_"You could tell me what you look like so I'm prepared,"_ Raoul said a few days ago. _"Are we talking more_ Friday the 13th? _or_ The Hills Have Eyes? _"_

Neither, Erik said flatly. Just drop it, please. Just stop asking. 

Intellectually, he got that Raoul was just trying to be a nice guy and a good friend. But Erik had an ingrained response to being asked to take his mask off - No, thank you. Or no, please. The benefit to keeping it on was two-fold. On the one hand, he spared other people having to look at him. And on the other hand, he spared himself having to watch their reactions to his face.

He dropped the library books in the outside book deposit and hadn't gone inside since Mrs. Hughes got an eyeful. On the off-chance she was working again, he didn't want to deal with her, either her pity or her scorn or her fear should he come in again. Mask or no mask, after someone saw, they couldn't forget. 

Dr. K turned onto the street where Jasmine's school was and belatedly Erik remembered that they were picking her up after his appointment. He brought a hand up instantly to cover his face since he couldn't slouch down in the seat any more then he was. That would just be the icing on the cake of his decidedly crappy day; a whole class of Kindergarteners waiting for the bus and screaming at him. 

The pick-up/drop-off monitor was more concerned with keeping the kids in her charge firmly on the sidewalk than she was with scrutinizing the passenger seats of the cars pulling up to pick up their kids. Dr. K rolled down her window and asked for Jasmine Khan, who skipped toward them, throwing her Strawberry Shortcake backpack on the floor as she hopped up into the car, buckling herself into her booster seat. 

"Hi Erik!" she said cheerfully, thumping the toes of her patent leather shoes against the back of her mother's seat. 

"Stop," Dr. K said and Jasmine complied cheerfully. 

"Okay, Mommy. HI ERIK!" she said more loudly since he didn't respond to her first greeting. She didn't give him much chance to respond to her second greeting either since she started chatting. "Are you gonna throw up? Jason Chin threw up and he sits next to me and it was _so_ stinky. The teacher let him go home early, his mommy had to get him and we had to leave our seats so the cleaning man could come and clean it all up. Then Kristin threw up because Jason threw up and it was like domino-throw up! I didn't throw up though, I pinched my nose and got to go to recess early!"

"I'm glad you're getting this out of your system before dinner," Dr. K muttered, pulling away from the school and back toward the house. Jazz kept on chatting, first about her friends, then about her teacher, then about The Play.

The Play was the biggest thing in her six-year-old life. The school was having an end-of-the-year showcase and Grade K was putting on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Jazz won the coveted role of Goldilocks, over the objections of a little brat named Jennifer who apparently raised quite a fuss over the fact that Goldilocks was _supposed_ to be blonde (like Jennifer herself) and Jazz had _black_ hair. 

Jazz's retort became something of a Kindergarten legend. 

_"I have a dramatic license,"_ she said, before the teacher could intervene. _"And a dramatic license means you're allowed to be whoever you want in a play because it's pretend anyway."_ And that was the end of that.

"Can you help me practice my lines, Erik?" she asked as they pulled into the tiny garage under the house. "Please please?"

"Sure, Jazz," he promised, lowering his hand from his face now that they were inside. Jazz had seen him plenty of times and never seemed bothered.

"Hooray!" she cheered, unbuckling herself and zipping out of the car to the side door, so she could be the one to punch in the alarm code. It made her feel important to do so and there was nothing in the world Jasmine loved as much as feeling important.

Dr. K lingered in the car for a minute, turning to Erik with a soft smile. "She loves you, you know. When the teacher asked them to talk about their families, she said Jazz went on and on about her big brother Erik."

He couldn't help but smile at that, just a little. 

"That's nice," he said quietly. "She's a sweetie."

"She's not the only one," Dr. K said, looking at him seriously. For a second it looked like she was going to say something else, but instead she let herself out of the car, holding the door open and waiting for him.

There was one message on the answering machine and Dr. K beckoned Erik over, her hand hovering over the play button. "It's for you," she said, then left him alone to give Jazz her afternoon snack of Juicy Juice and Oreos.

The message was from Raoul.

_"Hi Erik, um, sorry to bother you, but I wanted to ask a favor. Christy's graduating in three weeks and needs to clean out her apartment and get home. Her dad can't take the time out of work and she's terrified of driving a U-Haul. One of her roommates is heading back to Raleigh, so they're going as far as North Carolina and...well, I told her I'd meet her and drive back the rest of the way. It's about seven hours from here to there and I was wondering if you wanted to come for a road trip. No pressure if you can't take the time off work, but I figured we'd head down on a Monday morning and be back late that night. Let me know if you want to come, I'll pay for food and stuff. Uh, thanks. Bye."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also did a post of vaguely accurate human people representations of what I imagine the characters to look like http://madamefaust.tumblr.com/post/173900593517/reference-pictures-for-favors-just-imagine


	10. Chapter 10

Raoul borrowed Phil's credit card to rent a car to get them down to North Carolina. It was a short, squat little Volvo and Erik's knees were fighting a losing battle with the dashboard.

"It'll be better once we've got the truck," Raoul apologized after Erik squeezed back in once they were done getting soft drinks and gas at a rest stop.

"It's okay," Erik said, poking a straw into his iced tea so he could drink while still wearing the mask. When they stopped for lunch at McDonald's, Erik ate by angling his face away from Raoul and only taking off one side of the mask, sneaking fries when Raoul had to concentrate on the road or paying a toll. 

It seemed like the biggest pain in the ass ever, but Raoul was done bugging him to just take it off and eat like a regular person. Erik withdrew every time he asked, got nervous and jittery and Raoul wasn't about to spend the next three hours cruising down the highway with a guy who seemed like any second he was about to throw open the car door and roll out onto the pavement to get away from him. 

Once they'd gotten out of Maryland the radio stations tended more and more toward country, so they'd done with the radio a while ago. They chatted, mostly, steering away from topics that made Erik uncomfortable which mean that Raoul basically kept up a running monologue about his entire childhood.

The Catholic school thing proved particularly fascinating and wound up taking up the bulk of their trip through Virginia.

"You had _nuns?_ " Erik asked, wide eyed and astonished.

"Yep," Raoul replied. French nuns, even. Well, French-Canadian which was close enough as far as he was concerned. They doted on him, mostly because of his first name. 

"Like Sally Field nuns?" 

Less cute than Sally Field. And their veils didn't do that up-thing. 

"Like...like _Sound of Music_ nuns?"

Mostly older than Julie Andrews. Again, not as cute. But yeah, basically. 

"And you had to go to church? Like, part of your school was going to church? Catholic church?"

Yes, Raoul replied patiently. For first Friday mass. And all the Holy Days of Obligation. Then Erik asked him to explain exactly what a Holy Day of Obligation was and the whole conversation was derailed as Raoul had to explain the deal with Ash Wednesday and Catholic fasting. 

"It's not like serious fasting," Raoul summarized after he refueled one last time before they hit the rental depot. "Catholic fasting is more like don't snack between meals. I was only in Catholic school 'til eighth grade anyway, so I wasn't old enough to do it."

"Fascinating," Erik said, unbuckling himself and following Raoul into the Hertz building so he could use the bathroom before they met up with Christine. "You are a fascinating individual."

"Oh, come on," Raoul said, feeling Erik was laying it on a little thick. "I'll bet our schools weren't that different. Except for the nuns and church thing. It was like regular school. Okay, yeah, and the uniforms, but Catholic schools aren't the only ones that make kids wear uniforms."

"My school didn't have uniforms," Erik shook his head. Then added, right before he disappeared into the men's room, "Anyway, I don't know what regular elementary school was like. I was in SpEd classes until third grade."

As Raoul walked to the desk, he brushed off the last comment, though he wasn't exactly sure what Erik meant by 'sped' classes. Like advanced? Sped-up? Accelerated learning? That made sense, given that Erik was such a smart guy.

He returned the keys, signed the paperwork and went outside immediately. The U-Haul was already parked in the lot and it was in an obvious enough place that Raoul figured Erik could find them. A light rain was falling from the sky, but as soon as he stepped out he saw the door of the van open and Christine stepped out.

She had been sitting in the passenger seat, as if warding off the very notion that she would _ever_ have to drive the car. He waved to her as he approached and she hopped out of the truck, running toward him with her arms out for a hug.

Christy looked almost exactly the same as she had the last time he'd seen her. Maybe she'd gained a little weight, and her hair was different, styled into a crunchy-curly Deniece Williams 'do, but the round face, big brown eyes, and epic dimples were just as Raoul remembered. 

_You smell great!_ was Raoul's first thought, but he tamped it back. That was enough of letting his mouth run away with him for one day. She did smell amazing though. Probably the hairspray. 

"Hi, how are you, you look good," he said, wrapping his arms around her soft, off-white Spelman sweatshirt. Her head tucked under his chin, like a puzzle piece fitting into place. 

"I do _not_ , but oh my God, thank you _so_ much," Christy said, arms going around his waist to give him a squeeze, crispy curls tickling his chin. "For coming down I mean. I thought I was going to have to drive that stupid truck from Meghan's place to here and...that was _not_ going to happen. Thank God her step-dad drove it over, her mom followed in the car. How are _you_? How was the drive?"

Good, he said, pulling back before the hug became awkwardly long. "Not much to listen to on the radio, so I was glad I had a friend. Thanks for not minding that he was coming, by the way."

"Oh, no problem, it's fine!" Christy said brightly, pulling her hair back into a ponytail with an elastic she pulled off her wrist. "Now, do I know Erik? I was trying to remember if he was someone we went to high school with, but I came up short."

"Nah, he's a guy I met from town," Raoul clarified. "Since I moved back."

"Oh, _good_ ," Christy sighed with relief. "I was making myself crazy, trying to put a face to the name. I was picturing, you know, some kind of Nordic blonde guy, with a name like that and I think there was a blonde _Derek_ on the soccer team, but - "

She trailed off, eyes going wide, posture going tense and she reached out and gripped Raoul's wrist as she stared at something behind him. Raoul turned around, on high alert, but relaxed when he saw it was just Erik ambling over. He stopped about three feet away and waved his long white fingers at Christine. 

"Hi. Um. When did it start raining?"

"Two seconds ago," Raoul replied, noting that what started as a light drizzle was rapidly transitioning over to a steadier rainfall. They should probably get in the truck. "Erik, this is Christine, Christy, this is Erik."

"Hi," Erik said again, folding his hands awkwardly behind his back.

"...hi," Christy said, looking between Erik and Raoul was a big question mark in her expression. Belatedly he realized he hadn't really prepared her. Mostly when they talked, he wanted to talk about her. He'd told her he was bringing a friend with him for the drive, but he had neglected to mention just how...well, _different_ he was. And that he wore a mask. No wonder she was a little freaked out. 

Still Christine rallied gamely and favored Erik with a thousand-watt smile. She let go of Raoul's arm and approached him, arms open. "Thanks for coming! I swear, I was getting used to the idea of living in this parking lot because I _hate_ driving, like, period. And no way am I driving a truck with no back window."

"I don't even have a license," Erik admitted, having to bend down pretty far to give Christine a very brief, very loose hug. "If Raoul lost consciousness or something, I would have resigned myself to the end since it wouldn't even occur to me to take the wheel. I'm pretty useless in a car, except for finding good radio stations and that was a struggle for the last hundred miles."

"Oh, I _know_ ," Christy rolled her eyes and gestured them toward the truck. She sat down in the middle with Raoul on her left and Erik on her right. "The colleges sometimes have good stations, but the frequency is hard to pick up if it's windy or rainy, or snowy or...just, if weather is happening at all. Even clouds! A little fluffy cloud floats over the building? Forget it, no broadcast that day!"

And just like that, Erik and Christine clicked. They spent the next hour talking about music - no radio required. Not once did she ask about the mask. Nor did either of them seem to remember Raoul was in the van.

On another day, Raoul might have been a little annoyed. Might have cleared his throat and asked if they could spend a few minutes talking about the Eagles or the 76ers or something that he could chime in on. But the rain was getting bad and once they were on the highway it was a long, slow crawl from exit to exit. They'd been driving for almost two hours and hadn't even made it back into Virginia. 

"We might not get back before dark," Raoul commented, glancing at his watch. "Um. Actually, we might not get back before midnight."

The rain was coming down in sheets, pounding on the metal walls and roof of the truck, making such a racket that even if they had turned on the radio, they probably wouldn't even be able to hear the music. 

"Oh!" Christy exclaimed, squinting at the road in front of them through the water steadily pouring down, the wipers ineffective against the deluge. "Um. Jeez. I didn't realize it was such a mess out there. Should we think about pulling off? Maybe finding a motel?"

Raoul had been thinking along the same lines himself. He still had Phil's AmEx and could reimburse him the cost of the room, but Erik spoke up, his voice nervous and quiet.

"Uh...are you sure...maybe...maybe it'll let up?"

A crack of lightning and boom of thunder lit up the darkened sky and Raoul took his eyes off the road just long enough to give Erik a skeptical glance. "You want to drive in this?"

"Um..." Erik cocked his head and gazed out the window. "...well, I don't have a license, so...um..."

"Yeah, we're getting a motel," Raoul said, putting on the turning signal to pull into the right-hand lane, giving Erik an order to look out and make sure he was clear on that side. "I'll put it on my brother's card."

"No, we'll put it on my dad's card," Christy replied. Then it was their turn to forget Erik existed as they bickered over who was paying for what. 

"Nope, not happening."

"You already drove all the way down here, so I think I should - "

"You can pay for dinner, how about that?"

"Are we going for steaks? Because a hotel room is going to cost more than, I don't know, a pizza from Dominos or something."

"Do they even _have_ Dominos, in the sticks?"

Erik, meanwhile, sat rigid and stoic in the passenger seat. He was scrunched up against the door, giving off that air that he might throw himself out of the car to avoid...well, Raoul didn't know _what_ he was trying to avoid. Maybe paying for things? Erik didn't seem like a plastic-carrying guy and since he didn't have a license, he assumed he also didn't have a credit card. No big deal, as far as Raoul was concerned.

To set him at his ease, Raoul commented, "I'll just put it on Phil's card. He probably won't even notice, to be honest, it'll be easier that way. So don't worry about coughing up twenty bucks or whatever."

Erik didn't say anything. Didn't even act like he could hear him. Just stared at the rain and folded his arms tight against his narrow chest.

They found a Motel 6 pretty close to the off-ramp in a built up part of town that featured a GroundRound across the street, the parking lot of which was packed with cars. Clearly it was the hottest ticket in town. 

"I'm going to run in," Raoul said, pocketing the U-Haul keys. Christy said she'd go with him, to phone her dad and let him know she'd be getting back late. 

"I'll just stay here," Erik said, face angled away. 

"O...kay," Raoul said, holding the door open for Christine. She whipped her sweatshirt off and held it over her head like a canopy as they ran for the door. 

There was an older lady in front of them, arguing with the sleepy-looking guy at the front desk about the 'dirty pictures' on the television in her room, while he patiently tried to explain that just because PBS was showing a special on Botticelli, she could always turn the TV off and choose not to watch it. Christy shook her sweatshirt out and looked around the lobby for a pay phone. Finding none she took up her place in line beside Raoul, favoring him with a brilliant, dimple-framed smile and a shrug.

"This is turning into an adventure!" she said brightly. "This is crazy, the first time we meet up in three years and we're getting a hotel room together."

She laughed and, after a beat, Raoul laughed too. He was suddenly aware of the fact that while her sweatshirt umbrella kept her hair mostly dry, the same could not be said for her t-shirt and it clung to her...uh. Yeah. Immediately he raised his eyes to her face and re-focused on the dimples.

"So, where did you find a teeny-tiny baby to travel with?" she asked, like it was the most natural question in the world. 

Raoul blinked and replied, "What?" But before she could clarify, it was their turn to check in.

The desk clerk finally told the dirty pictures lady she'd have to wait since the couple behind her had been waiting a long time. 

"We're not..." Raoul trailed off, glancing at Christine who shrugged. "Um. Do you have a room with two beds? And...uh..."

Obviously doubling up with Christine was out of the question. They hadn't seen each other in three years, as she pointed out, and anyway they'd only ever been _friends._ It wasn't...it couldn't be - gah. Yeah. No, they were not sharing. Which meant that he'd have to cozy up with Erik which was equally unacceptable in Raoul's mind, though for very different reasons.

"A cot," Christine supplied as his brain short-circuited. "We've got a friend waiting in the car, do you have cots?"

"We sure do," the guy (name tag 'Stu') said with a huge, relieved smile, addressing the woman who'd come in before them. "Yeah - s'cuse me, ma'am, I'll just get them set up and...that might take a while, why don't you hunker down with a magazine and I'll get to you quick as I can?"

Stu ran Phil's credit card and took their names (Raoul penciled in Erik's). Christy asked if there were phone in the room (yes) and asked if they could get set up so she could call her dad right away. Stu agreed and five minutes later they were let into a room with two double beds, a squat television on a dresser and a bathroom the size of a matchbox. 

As they waited for Stu to return with the cot, Raoul sat down on the bed closest to the bathroom, watching as Christy dialed her dad's number and left a message on his answering machine when he didn't pick up. A short one, saying only that they were stuck on the border with Virginia because of bad weather and that they'd probably get home by noon the next day. She gave him the address and phone number of the motel, just in case.

Stu still hadn't returned when Christy hung up so Raoul took the opportunity to ask, "Why - earlier, back at the desk, why did you call Erik a..."

"A baby?" she supplied, heading into the bathroom to dry her sweatshirt. "Because he _is_. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's cute that he's your little buddy, but - it's an ed major thing, everyone was a baby to us. There are elementary school babies, junior high babies - I had Erik pegged as a high school baby, so - "

"He's our age," Raoul interrupted, shaking his head in a complete lack of comprehension. A baby. A _baby_? Raoul had never, in his entire life, seen a human being who looked less like a baby than Erik. 

Now it was Christy's turn to look perplexed. "What? No he's not, no _way_. He gives off such a teenager vibe! How old is he really?"

"He's..." _Twenty-one. Just say he's twenty-one._

But Raoul trailed off. Had Erik ever actually _said_ how old he was? With concrete numbers? No, not exactly. But Raoul was _sure_ he was...he _had_ to be...

"He's...I'm pretty sure he's our age," Raoul finished lamely. Fortunately he was spared having to defend his logic when Stu wheeled the cot in, moving an armchair out of the way to make room for it. Stu also produced an umbrella, so that Raoul wouldn't get soaked going out to the car to collect the third member of their impromptu sleepover. Christy thanked him with a bright smile and Raoul left her alone to go back to the car and get Erik.

_Twenty-one. He's got to be twenty-one - at least!_

For a second, Raoul let himself get rained on, squinting at Erik, still all curled up in the front seat, looking miserable. No way he was still a teenager. There was just no way. Right?

"I can sleep in the truck," Erik said as soon as Raoul opened the door. Although Raoul wasn't picking up any teenager vibes, he was picking up major anxiety vibes. 

"What? No, you're not doing that," Raoul said at once, holding the umbrella out for Erik to take. "It's fine, we got a cot, so no sharing or anything. I know this kind of sucks, but it won't be weird. Sorry for all this, but it's kind of unavoidable."

Thunder and lightning again. Louder this time. Closer. 

"Ground Round probably has veggie stuff," Raoul offered. "It's okay if you didn't bring enough cash, I'll cover you. No big deal. Okay? Come on, man, I'm not wearing galoshes so my feet are getting soaked."

Erik cringed away _very_ slightly, but mastered himself enough to trudge off to the room with Raoul. Their heights were disparate enough that the umbrella was little use to either of them when they tried to get under together and as a result they were both pretty soaked when they got back to the room. Christy was lounging on the cot, shoes off, flipping through channels on the television. News. News. She stopped on _Wheel of Fortune._

"Hey, Erik honey, I meant to ask earlier, but how old are you?" she asked casually. Too casually. For all that Raoul remembered her being sweet and spunky, he forgot how sneaky she could be when she wanted to be proved right. 

Erik froze in the doorway, not closing the door behind him. Raoul scooted around, shutting the door against the sound of the wind and rain echoing all around them.

"Um..."

 _Say twenty-one, say twenty-one,_ Raoul silently prayed. 

"Seven - uh, seventeen?" he finished on a question-mark, the same way he'd said 'building a pipe-organ' the night they met. The night Raoul made a bunch of assumptions about him, but never bothered to confirm them. There might have been the teensiest bit of horror on his face as he turned toward Erik, eyes wide, mouth gaping. Erik ducked his head a little and avoided Raou's eyes as he continued, "Just turned seventeen. Like...a month ago. Um. Does that phone work? I need to call...some people."

The Khans. The people he lived with. Not, presumably, people he worked for. His...what, foster parents? And if Erik had turned seventeen a month ago, that meant this same Erik, the one who got stuck on the fence, who didn't do well in a traditional academic environment, who had a life philosophy and all kinds of esoteric knowledge had been _sixteen fucking years old_ the _entire time_ Raoul had known him. 

"But..." Raoul spluttered just as Christy was confirming that the phone worked. "But...but you're so _tall._ "

Christy was smiling the same smug, told-you-so smile that Raoul had known well since they were in Kindergarten. Erik stammered a reply.

"Uh, yes. Yes, I am," he said, paused halfway between Raoul and the phone. His right arm twitched and Erik continued, talking faster. "I was six feet tall in seventh grade. My parents had me tested, they thought there was something else wrong with me - like Marfan's or something. There wasn't. I'm just tall."

"But you're a minor!" Raoul cried, not sure _why_ this news upset him so much, only knowing that it _did._ He felt...betrayed. Not by Erik specifically, he wasn't mad at Erik, who couldn't help being _seventeen fucking years old_ , but by himself. By his idea of who Erik was. "And I took you across state lines!"

Christy snorted, evidently enjoying watching Raoul overreact. Erik looked over at him, eyebrows raising in surprise. "That's okay, the Khans know I'm with you. I'm just going to call them and say we're stuck here."

"That's a great idea!" Christy said brightly, hopping off the cot as Pat announced the next category ('Place') in the background. "I'm going to ask Stu if Ground Round does take-out. Or delivery! Which would be stellar."

And, having brought stark reality crashing down on Raoul's pleasant dream world where he had a friend, another guy in a similar situation to him, adrift in the shadowland between adolescence and adulthood (apparently being shellshocked made him poetic). But if Erik was only seventeen...then he was just a kid. He had a whole life of him, lots of time to get his shit together, figure something out, go back to school, even! Whereas Raoul was this loser adult who hadn't produced anything worthwhile, wasn't of any use to anyone, and wasn't even close to setting himself up for something better.

Erik stood as he called the Khans and, unlike Christine, someone was home to answer the phone. 

"Hi, Jazz. No, I'm not coming home tonight - can I talk to your mom or - Virginia. I think. It's South. I know I said I would, sweetie, but...can you just...uh-huh. Nope, that's really interesting. But could you put your mom or dad on the - hi. Hi! Dr. K. We're stuck in Virginia, we're staying at a motel. Um, a Motel 6. It's fine. I don't know, I didn't see him. Me, Raoul, and Christine. Raoul has a credit card. No, you don't have to, I'll pay him back. I just wanted to call and let you know where I was. I'm sorry, I would have left a note if I'd anticipated this setback. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yes. I will. Okay. 'Bye."

Erik hung up and stood in the no-man's land between the beds. Raoul stood by the door, feet leaving two wet, sneaker-shaped imprints in the floor. Neither of them said anything. Outside, the rain continued to pour.


	11. Chapter 11

Erik ate his dinner (garden salad, hold...literally anything else that could go on it, but with extra croutons) in the bathroom. Christine sat on the cot and scarfed down chicken fingers while Raoul picked at his own burger. He should never have gotten a burger to-go, the bottom bun was beyond soggy and the fries were limp by the time they brought it back from the restaurant. Ground Round did _not_ deliver, but Front Desk Stu turned out to have a chivalrous streak, so he he and Raoul ran across four lanes of traffic to pick up dinner. 

They should have asked Stu if he wanted to join them for dinner. There was a whole empty bed that he could be enjoying his dessert on. Since. You know. Erik was eating _in the bathroom._

"I'm assuming the mask isn't just for allergies?" Christine asked in a hushed tone, re-dipping her chicken in barbecue sauce. 

"I don't know what it's for," Raoul replied, more impatiently than he meant to. "He just said his face isn't 'good.' I don't know what that means. Maybe he's got a mole he's really embarrassed about."

Christy made a humming sound accompanied by an expression that indicated she didn't like Raoul's tone very much. Three years out, he could read her like a book. Unfortunately, she could read him just as well. "I think he's had speech. Therapy, I mean. Something about his inflection, the way he pronounces some consonants. I probably wouldn't notice if I didn't work in the Special Education unit, but..."

She trailed off, dark eyes flickering toward the closed bathroom door. Raoul felt hot embarrassment roil in his stomach - embarrassment from Erik, embarrassment _for_ Erik. But mostly a sense of shame that he hadn't noticed all these little things Christine picked up on immediately. How young he was. How many problems he had.

Despite her earlier protestations that it was 'cute' he had a 'little buddy,' Raoul assumed she had to think something was majorly wrong with _him_. That his closest friend was a weird looking teenager with special needs - that Erik was currently his _only_ friend and Raoul seemed to know nothing about him. Not even what he looked like. 

How sad was that? Raoul was so desperate for a friend that he'd latched on to _Erik_ of all people. Three or four years ago, he never would have allowed him into his life like that, bringing him food, talking for hours about things Raoul really didn't care about (Vanderbilts and bathtubs and crappy music). Three or four years ago, he had options. Three or four years ago, he was a guy people wanted to know. Three or four years ago...

Erik emerged from the bathroom, putting the remnants of his dinner in the tiny wastebasket in the room. He cleared his throat, looked between Raoul and Christine nervously. "Is it okay if I take a shower? If I have to sleep in my clothes, I'd rather not be personally groady."

 _Why didn't you just do that while you were eating your salad?_ Raoul thought sarcastically. _You could have killed two birds with one stone - oh, sorry. Is that analogy inconsistent with your life philosophy?_

"Go for it!" Christy piped up enthusiastically. "That's a really good idea, but I hate going to bed with wet hair, I'm a morning showerer."

Raoul kept his mouth shut, put the container of soggy burger and fries on the bedside table and lay back against the pillows of the bed, closing his eyes. 

The bathroom door shut again and the shower kicked on. 

"Are you going to bed?" Christy asked curiously. "It's not even nine."

"I figured we'd get going first thing," Raoul replied, still keeping his eyes closed. "As long as we don't hit too much traffic, I can have you home by noon."

"I'm not in a hurry," she said. Raoul didn't answer. "At least take off your sneakers."

That was a suggestion he couldn't ignore. Raoul toed off his Nikes and then got under the covers. He closed his eyes, lay stiffly on his side and pretended to sleep. He pretended to sleep all though Erik's shower. He pretended to sleep as Erik and Christine clicked through their limited array of channels, trying to find something that wasn't local news or infomercials. He pretended to sleep when they finally gave up and went to their respective beds, Christy on the cot, Erik at the bed nearest the door. 

The lights clicked off. There was nothing but the sound of the rain outside, which should have been faintly soothing, but only served to exacerbate Raoul's irritation. 

None of this was right. Not the shitty weather, not getting stranded, not the lack of anything worth watching on TV. 

It stirred up an unfair resentment in Raoul's chest. He shouldn't _be_ there. Not in Virginia. Not with a girl he hadn't talked to in three years, not with...Erik. 

The anger made him restless. Raoul wasn't a smoker, but times like this he absolutely understood why people started. It would a relief, to have an excuse to leave, to go out into the rain and take a few minutes of instant relaxation. 

He opened his eyes. Some light from the parking lot streamed in through the curtains, which didn't close all the way. Christine was fast asleep, mouth slightly open. Erik was curled up with his back to both of them, cocooned in the blankets.

Raoul silently swung his legs around the edge of the bed. The carpet felt slightly damp under his bare feet in an unpleasant way. He regretted standing up almost as soon as he'd risen, but lying down wasn't providing any relief either. Maybe he'd go down the hallway and throw a few quarters into he cigarette machine, buy his first pack. 

He was sneaking around the edge of Erik's bed when Erik shifted slightly. Raoul kept his eyes on the door, knowing Erik probably wasn't wearing the mask, definitely didn't want him looking at him...

And why the hell not? Raoul had be respectful, to this point. Hadn't pushed, hadn't goaded even when Erik was being _ridiculous_ about things. And where had that gotten him? Looking like an idiot in front of Christy for not knowing the most _basic_ things about him. 

Raoul looked over at Erik's bed. He was lying on it diagonally, but was still curled up in a ball, the covers untucked and wrapped tightly around him. One of his pale, skinny feet was poking out; he had really long toes. 

A closer examination revealed that Erik's customary sweatshirt and jeans were lying on the floor beside the bed. The rumpled hospital mask was on top of the pile. 

_It's late, he's sleeping,_ Raoul reasoned against the pang of conscience that told him not to look. _He'll never know._

Raoul crept closer. At first, it seemed like he was going to be disappointed; all he could see was Erik's curly black hair, a sliver of pale brow. The top of his head looked normal, it was a mystery why he had his hood up all the time -

But Erik shifted again, from his side onto his back. And Raoul saw, finally, why Erik covered his face with a mask. And he couldn't say he blamed him. 

Erik's hair was still slightly wet from his shower, plastered down around his ears - too small for his head, sticking out, and...something about them looked almost fake. Like mannequin ears.

There was a scar above his lips, which were uneven and curled slightly up on the left side - a cleft repaired probably. But that wasn't the worst. The scar, the ears, the acne-scarred cheeks and chin, that was all...ugly, yeah. But not the worst. The scar disappeared into a hole in the middle of his face, where his nose should have been, but just...wasn't. It looked like it just never formed, there was a snubbed bridge and the septum and everything, but no cartilage. No nostrils. 

It was gross. Disgusting. 'Not good in the face,' Erik said. He hadn't stated the half of it. 

And this was the guy he'd been friends with for months. The guy he'd looked forward to seeing. The guy he'd taken along and introduced to Christy like he was normal. Like everything was normal. 

What an idiot he'd been. What a complete and utter idiot.

Raoul looked away and looked back, as though Erik's face wound improve on a second glance. It didn't. If anything, he just looked more pathetic, long limbs drawn up and tangled in the blankets. He was hugging a spare pillow close, like it was a teddy bear. 

_He's seventeen,_ Raoul recalled, pity overcoming revulsion. Just a kid. A young kid with a fucked up face and more baggage than Raoul thought possible for one person to have. Foster care. The scars on his arms. That _face._

Raoul never bought those cigarettes. He padded silently back to bed, curled up with his back to Erik, though he could still see that face, even with his eyes closed. The dark circles under Erik's eyes. The tension in his arms around the pillow. 

_It's too much_ , Raoul thought, burying his own face in his pillow to muffle a groan. How could he stay friends with him? Erik needed...well, a lot. Way more than Raoul could give. 

The conversational door was open, Raoul once offered, not realizing just _what_ he was saying. Could he take it back? Take it all back? They had to ride back home together, that was a given. But once they were back, what then? Raoul couldn't go on as they had been. Now knowing what he knew now. God, he didn't even have his own life figured out. How could he expect to give Erik even a fraction of what he needed?

This wasn't what he'd signed up for. This wasn't the friendship he'd thought he was getting into when he and Erik met and Raoul made all those stupid assumptions. Reckless assumptions. Thoughtless assumptions. He didn't want it. Didn't want any of it. He didn't want anyone to be his responsibility - he just couldn't handle it.

 _Sorry, Erik,_ he thought as he finally drifted off. _Despite what you think, I'm not that nice of a person._


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things take a dark turn in this chapter. Erik doesn't do well with abandonment. **Warning:** For reference to **self-harm** and **attempted suicide**.

Raoul was being weird. And by weird, Erik meant normal. Like, people-normal, not Raoul-normal. Raoul-normal was being his friend. Among regular people...yeah. Friendship in general was not normal in Erik's life. 

No more late nights in the scrap yard. Presumably no more road trips. Maybe it was because he was too young. Maybe Raoul was mad at him for lying - only he hadn't lied. If Raoul cared so much about his age, he should have just asked him. Could have asked him. Erik wouldn't have lied if he'd asked. He _hadn't_ lied when he'd asked, even though Raoul's tone told him that he probably should. But he hadn't. Because they were friends. And even though Erik didn't have a lot of experience with friendship, he knew that friends didn't lie to each other.

Christy try to tell him not to worry about it. Not to blame himself. "Raoul is bad at friendship," she told him. 

They were friends now, him and Christy, at least starting to be friends. She gave him her number and told him to call her sometime and when he didn't, she looked him up at the record shop and asked if he'd like to go to a show with her. That was very new and different; even Raoul hadn't said that they should be seen in public together. 

Intellectually, Erik understood. Even though it hurt, it made sense. He was ugly. And...not normal. Like, at _all_. Even his parents didn't want him; why would a stranger give him the time of day?

He'd expressed a slightly less dramatic version of those feelings to Christine when they were out one night and that was when she said Raoul was bad at friendship. 

"It's kind of hard for him to invest emotionally in other people when he's not willing to invest in himself," she said. "You know? Like how if you don't love yourself first, you can't love anyone else? That's how it is with Raoul. I'm sure he likes you fine, he just doesn't like himself. At all."

Christy was very wise, Erik decided, after that conversation. But being wise didn't mean she had a solution. 

He was still avoiding the library, so it wasn't like he could drop by with books on a mission of kick-starting a renewed interest in school. Raoul hadn't called him, though Erik played back the Khan's answering machine every day, just in case. And every time Erik called the scrap yard during Raoul's shifts, the phone just rang and rang and rang. 

The phone had been tied up recently; lots of long-distance calls to Iran. All made late at night and all during Raoul's usual shift. Even though the conversations were conducted in Persian, Erik still tried not to eavesdrop; it was rude. Anyway, he had no reason to think the conversations had anything to do with him; he didn't know anyone in Iran.

Until the day Dr. and Mr. K asked him to come into the kitchen. He'd just finished up a shift at the record store. There was a steaming cup of cocoa on the table. His favorite, made with milk and not water and real chocolate. It put him on guard immediately. Something was wrong.

They asked him to sit down, which he did, heart hammering against his ribs. Dr. K lay a comforting hand on his left forearm. Erik felt sweat beading cold on his brow.

_They don't want me anymore. They're going to kick me out. First Raoul, now the Khans. What'd I do? Or was it just being myself? No one loves you. No one can stand you. No one can ever..._

"Erik? Erik, honey, are you listening?" Dr. K asked, her brow creasing in concern. There were bags under her eyes. He hoped the prospect of kicking him out hadn't made her feel too stressed. She was a doctor. She needed plenty of sleep, otherwise she might make mistakes with her patients. People being worried about him and thus harming others was bad. Totally inconsistent with his life philosophy.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, throat tight, eyes welling with tears. No way he'd be able to drink that cocoa; he felt like he could hardly talk. "I can get my stuff, just tell me when you want me gone - "

"Nope," Mr. K shook his head, his hand falling heavily on Erik's shoulder. "Nope, not listening. Start again, Roya."

Dr. K started again. This time Erik tried to concentrate on her voice and not the panicked one in his head, telling him how worthless he was. How unworthy of love. How easily abandoned.

She spoke slowly. Clearly. Apologized that they hadn't had more time to prepare, but that everything spiraled out of control really quickly. Mr. K's cousin's son (so, Mr. K's first cousin once removed) was coming from Iran to stay with them. Indefinitely.

"His name is Dalir, he's your age," Dr. K said. "And I'll leave the room situation up to you - either you guys can share your room or we'll make a more permanent set-up for him out here, in the living room. We're finally going to get you a comfortable bed, though, no more pull-out couch, okay?"

It took Erik a minute to respond - a minute in which his brain caught up with what his ears were hearing. Another boy - Dalir - was coming to stay. But Erik was also staying. 

"Why is he coming to live here?" Erik asked, curiosity taking the place of panic. "Is he doing study abroad?"

The Khan's exchanged a look that Erik didn't understand. 

"We're enrolling him in school," Mr. K said finally. "My school. He's got two years left, we think he'll finish them here."

"Is he Catholic?" Erik asked in confusion. 

Mr. K's mouth twisted into something that looked like a smile, but was most definitely not a smile. "No. But he'll get the friends and family discount. Speaking of - if you want, we could enroll you too. You could do junior year there. You'd be in the same grade, might be nice to start the year with a familiar face."

It was a common turn of phrase. Erik knew Mr. K didn't mean anything by it. But he flinched anyway. 

"Let's just concentrate on things that need to get done soon," Dr. K cut in. "We'll go to the mall tomorrow - I've already moved my appointments around. Get you a bed - Dalir can sleep on the twin."

A week went by _really_ fast. Too fast. And, as was to be expected, Erik spent most of it worrying.

Catastrophizing. Actually. Worrying was what normal people did. If Erik was normal his concerns would look something like this, 'It might be an inconvenience sharing a room with someone.' 'We might not get along.' 'We might not be able to communicate well because English isn't his first language.'

But because Erik was decidedly not normal, his concerns looked like this: _He's going to hate me. He's going to be disgusted by me. The Khans will realize how messed up I am when they have a regular kid to compare me to. An actual relative. They'll realize I'm a burden. They'll kick me out. I'll lose my job. I'll become homeless. I'll succumb to hypothermia in the streets. No one will mourn me._

It was July. Hypothermia was a distinct impossibility. Nevertheless, he worried. 

And dealt with that worry by avoidance. On the day Dalir was set to arrive, Erik just so happened to pick up more hours at work. Meaning that he got up really early, presented himself to Ronny and hid in the back restringing guitars until the blisters on his fingers popped and he was sent home (after stopping at CVS to pick up Band-Aids). He didn't go home, of course. He wandered around, hood up, head down, mask on. No one talked to him. No one bothered him. Anyone he passed on the street gave him a wide berth.

He was born and raised in Philadelphia, he knew the streets like the back of his hand, so he wasn't exactly wandering. He passed the synagogue where his family were sometimes members. The lights were on for the Friday evening service - he could just go in, if he wanted to. But he didn't want to. 

Down the street five blocks. Right. Wait at the intersection. Another ten blocks. And there. The old building. Home, once upon a time. 

The windows in his uncles' apartments were dark. Maybe they were members of the congregation again, gone to services. He wondered how his cousins were doing; he hadn't had any direct contact with the family since he was kicked out. The light in his family's apartment was on; even if the rest of the family had gone to pray, Dad was probably still home. 

"Erich! Erich Cohen!"

Erik jumped a mile. A man was waving at him from out the fourth floor window. Mr. Sachs, who by Erik's estimation was about a million years old. He had rheumy eyes, an almost inscrutable German accent even after forty years in the States, and a generous heart - it was on his piano that Erik had his first lessons. 

He was also incredibly _loud_. Erik's eyes darted to his family's window. A shadow moved. Blocking the light. _Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God._

Erik put his hands up like someone was pointing a loaded gun at him, trying to communicate the need for quiet. He wanted to yell up at Mr. Sachs, _'Shut up! Shut up! He'll hear you and I'll be in trouble!_ ' but he didn't. Because if he raised his voice, the shadow in the window would know he was there. 

Mr. Sachs didn't hear his unspoken plea. "Come up! Come up, I haven't seen you in...a year! Or more! Come up!"

The shadow came closer. Solidified into a face. Looked out the second-story window and into Erik's eyes. 

"What are you doing here?"

Fight or flight kicked in. Erik had never, _never_ been able to fight his father. Not when he was little. Not a year ago. Not now.

Without a word he ran down the street, tears burning his eyes. It was hard to breathe, with the running and the mask. He threw it off, not caring that the people who before just moved around him now stopped in their tracks and stared. Stared at the freak. The unwanted _thing_ barreling through the crowd.

Erik didn't know where he was going. He almost went straight to the Khans', but stopped himself. They would have gotten Dalir from the airport. They might be home, or they might have gone to the mosque. Either way, it was too early to go back to their house and it was too far to run. He almost went to the salvage depot before he remembered that Raoul didn't want to see him. Didn't want to be his friend. Didn't want him either. 

He was panicking. He was spiraling. The _bad_ kind of spiraling. The kind that gave him scars that would never go away, not the kind cut by scalpels, but he kind made with razorblades and his own fingernails. The kind that would make Dr. K send him to the hospital - the _bad_ hospital. The scary kind that wouldn't just patch him up and let him go. The one that meant no shoelaces and group therapy and pills and diagnoses of 'severe depressive episodes' and 'post-traumatic stress disorder' and pitying looks and talk of 'abuse' and 'neglect' and he _couldn't_ go back to that, he just _couldn't_. Not now. Not a year later.

A pay phone turned into salvation. Erik dropped a few quarters into the machine with shaking hands and waited and waited as the phone rang and rang.

Finally, a man's voice picked up. "Hello?"

"Is Christine there?" he managed to choke out, his voice sounding high-pitched and terrible in his ears. "Can...can I talk to her?"

But then there was her voice, cutting in. "I got it, Dad! I'm on the upstairs line - Erik, is that you? Is everything okay?"

He was so relieved he couldn't talk; he burst into tears instead, awful noisy, child-like tears.

"I'm sorry," he managed, free hand twisting the cord so tightly around his fingers that they turned purple at the tips. "I'm sorry, I'll hang up, I'm - "

"Where are you?" she demanded. "Tell me where you are, I'll come get you."

 _I'll come get you._  Never since, _Would you like to come live with us?_ had the English language sounded sweeter. 

He told her. She made him promise - _promise_ \- that he would stay exactly put until she arrived. He left the phone booth, wiped his face, and sat on the side of the road, leaning against a mailbox not far from the phone booth. It wasn't until a woman out for an evening jog stopped in her tracks and lost her breath at the sight of him did he realize he'd taken his mask off. 

Quickly, Erik brought his hand up to cover the worst of it, but it was too late - even if he retraced his steps, he'd never find it. And Christine told him to stay put. Stay exactly put. And he'd promised. She was coming to get him and he promised. 

A Toyota slowed down and parked illegal at the bus stop. Rather than throwing open the passenger door, Christy got out of the car, keys still in hand and knelt down on the ground beside him. Rather than asking any questions, or even commenting on his ugly weird face, she just wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug. 

Erik didn't hug her back, but he didn't pull away. He still felt terrible, but it was like that time he felt terrible after he tried to talk to his mom on the phone - with evidence that he _wasn't_ alone and _wasn't_ abandoned, he couldn't fall quite so far into the abyss. It was hard to fall when someone was hold onto you. 

Christine even went one step beyond hugging - she kissed him on the side of his head when she pulled away and said, "Come on. Tell me all about it."

He got up, got into the passenger seat of her car as she started the engine. And he told her. Everything. More than he'd told Raoul. More than he'd even told the Khans, though they knew everything because they'd talked to the doctors and the police officers. Erik told her things he didn't even know he remembered. And she listened. A few times he saw her take her right hand off the gear shift to wipe her eyes. But she listened. 

About how his mom left. How his dad blamed him - him and his issues. For being born broken and needing surgeries that bankrupted them. For being a burden and driving mom out of the house. How he had to stay with his grandmother after that because living with his dad was too dangerous. How his grandmother passed away at the end of his freshmen year in high school. How he had to go back to his dad. And how that ended. Almost ended forever. The aspirin. The razor blades. 

And the call to his father from the hospital. His only response to being told his only child had survived an apparent suicide attempt was two words: _Too bad._

"So I went to live with the Khans," Erik said, voice hoarse with a combination of crying and talking too much. "My mom used to work for Dr. K - she was a receptionist. I started babysitting for Jasmine when I was twelve. So I knew them. And she said I could live with them. So I do. But now their nephew is coming and...and I don't know how much longer they'll keep me."

They'd just been driving around while he talked. The gas tank was low. Christine pulled into a service station. The bright lights overhead made her dark skin really washed-out and kind of creepy. 

"Oh, Erik," she sighed and shook her head. She must have cried more than he thought; her eyes were really red. "I swear - I don't know this family, but it doesn't sound like they're just going to kick you out. Didn't you say they got you a spiffy new bed?"

"Yeah," Erik admitted. "But...Dalir's there now and he...he might not want me around. And he's their family. I'm...not. I'm not anyone's family."

Christine leaned over and gave him another hug, only broken when the gas station attendant knocked on the driver's side window and asked if they were planning on buying any gas. She got out of the car and filled her tank. Erik tried to make himself small and unseen, but the attendant didn't seem to care about him either way, as long as they paid their way. 

"I'm going to take you home - to the Khans', to your home, okay?" Christine said gently when she buckled herself back in. "I think you should go back now."

Erik shook his head, opposed. "I want to wait until they're in bed. Asleep. I want to wait - "

"I know," she interrupted him, soothingly. She had a really pretty voice. A really calming voice and he liked it a lot. "I know you want to wait, but I think you should go back now. Meet Dalir. See that everything - if you keep putting it off, you'll keep freaking yourself out, you know? And I bet, even if things aren't perfect, they're going to be a hell of a lot better than what you're thinking. Okay? Trust me."

Trust her. Erik hadn't known her very long, but Christy was _so_ nice. And he desperately wanted to trust someone. He always had, but opportunities had been few and far between. The last person he'd trusted was Raoul. Raoul, who iced him out. Just because Erik was Erik. 

"Okay," he said, finally, more sullenly than he meant to. "It's your car."

"My car, my rules," Christy replied lightly. She took her hand off the gear shift not to wipe tears, but to squeeze his arm. "I'll call you in the morning, okay? And if it's awful, I swear to God - I swear on _my mother's grave_ that you can come stay with me and my dad. Okay?"

Erik stiffened slightly. That was big. That was a _huge_ promise. A trustworthy promise. Stunned into silence, he could only nod. 

The lights were on at the Khans's. Christy didn't walk him to the door, but she stayed in the car and waited until she saw the door open before she pulled away. Dr. K had come running before he even took his keys out.

" _There_ you are!" she exclaimed, giving him a huge hug. "We were starting to worry."

"Notes, Erik," Mr. K reminded him, having poked his head into the foyer. "Notes, next time, okay?"

It was all so normal, that Erik almost forgot the everything was upside-down. Until Dr. K took him by the elbow and said he should meet Dalir.

There were Chinese food take-out containers on the kitchen table. Jazz and Reza were watching television, but Dr. K didn't stop for chit-chat with the kids. Instead she led him right tot he guest bedroom. 

"Should I..." Erik trailed off, gesturing toward his face.

Dr. K shook her head. "Nope, we already told him you look a little different. You're fine. It's fine."

Fine. Really?

But it was too late to wonder, worry, or catastrophize. There was someone in his room - or, the room that was supposed to be his room. Their room? Dalir had his back to the door. He had black hair, light brown skin and was shorter than Erik, but then, so was everyone. He was unpacking a duffle bag. On the floor was a half-empty backpack. It looked like he hadn't brought much stuff. 

An uncomfortable sensation twisted in Erik's stomach. For the past week, all he'd thought about was how Dalir coming would affect his life, his home, his place. He hadn't once thought about what made Dalir have to come to America with no warning. With hardly anything. 

"Dalir?" Dr. K said something else in Persian, but all Erik caught was the sound of his own name.

Dalir turned. He looked strong. Athletic. Broad shoulders and chest. But the thing that drew Erik's attention most was his face. It was probably a handsome face, but the first things he noticed were the fading bruises around his eyes and a puffy broken nose. Evidence of a split lip. A scar on his left eyebrow.

The damage. Erik was staring at the damage. Made sense. Dalir was staring at him in the same way. He broke his gaze just as Erik did. Both of them stared at the floor.

Dr. K broke the silence. "Erik, this is Dalir Khan - don't worry, he knows some English. I told him you'd help him practice."

"Hi," Erik said nervously, raising his eyes to Dalir's - green behind the swelling and the bruising. Vividly green, in fact. 

"Hi," Dalir replied. Then slowly added, "Thank you for...the room."

His mouth twisted in frustration - with Erik? But no, he didn't seem annoyed to have to share. Dalir gestured around and indicated the walls, the bed, the shared space. He looked like someone who was mad they couldn't express what they wanted to verbally. Erik understood - oh, _God_ , did he ever.

"You're, ah, you're welcome," he replied awkwardly. Trying to seem hospitable - maybe he wasn't the only person in this situation who'd been worried about finding a place - Erik darted over to the closet and indicated the empty hangers. "You can put your stuff here. I can help you unpack?"

Dalir stared at him, then his eyes darted back to Dr. K. Erik talked _way_ too fast. One thing the speech pathologists hadn't managed to break him of.

He tried again. "I can help you? If you want?" Erik mimed removing clothes and then gestured toward the hangers again. 

"Help," Dalir repeated, then nodded. "Okay. I...not many. I do not have many...much..."

Another frustrated gesture. The duffel bag. The backpack. 

"I'll just move my stuff," Erik offered. Not that it would take long. He didn't have much either.

Dr. K smiled. "I'll get you guys for supper. I got you a veggie lo mein, Erik. And the broccoli in garlic sauce."

It was stupid - like, _so_ stupid - but Erik almost started crying again. Over Chinese food. But it wasn't the Chinese food. Just the fact that even on a day like this, when they had so much to worry about, the Khans still thought about him. Christine was right - she was wise. Maybe she was trustworthy too.

Erik moved his instruments out of the way, a guitar under his new bed, the violin case went off the floor and onto a shelf. Dalir paused in his work and watched him.

"You play music?" he asked tentatively.

Erik nodded enthusiastically and tried to speak slowly. Enunciate.  _Tongue up, engage the throat, let's try that hard 'k' sound again._  "Oh yeah, I love music. All kinds. How about you?"

"Music, sure," Dalir nodded. Then Dalir indicated a spot high above his own head. "Sport? Basketball?"

The mere mention of the word sent an involuntary spasm of horror across Erik's face. His bare face. It must have looked horrible. Or...funny? Because Dalir's puffy eyes went wide at Erik's reaction. Then he smiled, really briefly, but it was a smile.

"No?" he asked, rhetorically. He had a noticeable accent, but the English he spoke was clear. Erik decided he really liked his accent. He hoped it wouldn't go away the longer Dalir was in America; Dr. K and Mr. K hardly had accents at all. 

"No," Erik shook his head. "Sorry. I mean I'm tall, but...not sporty. Um. I don't do sports. Sports are not...for me. Nope. No thanks. No sports."

Dalir smiled again, longer this time. "Okay."

Yeah, no, he'd have to keep that accent. Dalir didn't actually say, 'okay.' He was missing the hard 'k' sound the speech pathologists grilled Erik on. When he said it, it sounded like 'ochay.' And that was kind of great. Hard 'k's were overrated. 

Later, he called Christine. He wanted to thank her, but also let her know things were okay. Or, ochay.

"Hi, you were right," he said all in a rush. "Um. Everything is fine. For now. Things could always be unfine, but now it is. Fine, I mean. Thank you, also, for today, I appreciate it and I'm sorry for bothering - "

"Don't be sorry," she cut him off, but in a nice way. "I'm glad things worked out. But if you get stressed or whatever - I mean, I was stressed when I went to college and got roommates, it totally happens - call me, okay? We can make plans to go to a concert or a movie or something. Okay, Erik? You promise?"

"I promise," he said. And he would. It wasn't a lie. Christy was his friend. And you weren't supposed to lie to friends. 


End file.
